Panic Buying And You
The shelves are rapidly emptying themselves in the local grocery stores. Soon the shelves themselves will fade into the ether having suffered an existential crisis.
I am a shelf. I hold things up. What becomes of me when there is nothing to hold? Is there meaning beyond my Sisyphean struggle against the force of gravity in the service of my corporate retail master? I am Atlas on the dole, finding himself without purpose. Is there any reason for my continued existence except as an indication of negative space?
I now only signify a lack. Specifically, of bum fodder.
Faced with the sudden loss of a common commodity we begin to forget. What was the use of it? What was its shape? Why is it lost to our memories? It was present in our minds just a short time ago. The utility seemed certain at the time. There was true utility in this object? Not just vanity and fear placed into our minds by the advertising industry?
Perhaps in the long run this calamity will teach us to give up on certain commodities. Toilet paper. Processed pork products. Scented hand sanitizer. Cleansing wipes. Strips of paper to remove the evidence of errant sauces. Fluids that promise to cover odors with other odors which were designed to invoke the memory of a life that only existed in the imaginings of a punch card operated computing device.
This feels like a tipping point. We’re being forced to examine the objects we would consider a basic necessity when an endless wave of suburban goblin hordelings armed with shopping carts eliminates its presence from our lives. They have been ripped out of our hands by screaming yellow id of every hordeling and stored in the personal vaults of the detached single family home dweller.
We must say adieu to these things. They are lost to us.
This endless stream of SUV’s leaving the parking lots of Costco with their rear suspension creaking under the weight of the pre-moistened sanitary wipes, frozen chicken taquitos, toaster pastries, cans of lightly pressurized sugar solution, and sundry agri-industrial products must be driven by more than the simple calculation of need. These products are being acquired in quantities that even the most risk averse chamberlain preparing for a siege would find excessive. I doubt fear alone is driving these people. There must be greed and avarice in their hearts. The desire to possess more than their neighbor. The pleasure of having three when others will have none.
The only opportunity for vengeance is in exterminating the value of these things. Find an alternative. Share. Evolve. Let these degenerates wallow in their garages packed with excess. An excess of the more ordinary kind. It only holds value when it means an absence of what is truly needed in another’s home. Try to fill that absence. Fuck the goblins.
