Dear Friends:

If you're like me, you haven't been out to the store in a while. Yesterday I had to go and pick up a prescription refill at the Target pharmacy. While I was there, I took a quick look around to see if inventory had been replenished after everyone accused "preppers" of "hoarding."

Remember how the MSM and the politicians all said, "If you just stop panic-buying, everything will be back to normal?"

Friends, I'm here to tell you, it's not. It is anything but normal. Many of the shelves were just as bare as when I wrote this article with photographs from around the country.

I asked the pharmacist and the woman who rung up my purchases how busy it had been and they both said things were really slow and that not many customers were coming in. Yet the inventory was still incredibly sparse. This tells me that no, things are not okay and no, there isn't "plenty" of inventory. There are shortages - big ones - and the government doesn't want people to know about it.

Here's what I saw in sort of a stream of consciousness format - please forgive the lack of full sentences. I just jotted down notes on my phone as I went through the store. Here's the scoop on what was there and what was not.

Lots of items were limited to one or two per customer.
There was hardly any meat.
Paper products - there were a few packs of napkins, 3 packs of paper plates and garbage bags - everything else was gone - there was absolutely no toilet paper, no paper towels, no paper cups or plastic cutlery
Cleaning supplies - very picked over. very little of the fancy organic cleaners, no bleach at all, no bleach wipes, not much laundry detergent, spray cleaners or dish soap - lots of dryer sheets
International food - Indian food was picked over, Mexican was at about 50%, and Asian food was plentiful (maybe they think they'll get coronavirus from it?)
OTC meds - hardly anything left except vitamins, very little acetaminophen and ibuprofen. First aid goods were limited 1 per customer and OTCs were 2 per customer
Very little fresh food - there was only one bag of potatoes and a couple of onions. There were older apples and oranges in the coolers instead of on the tables in the middle, plenty of milk and fake dairy, not much butter or margarine, not a lot of eggs
Other food: frozen food was picked over but there was a reasonable amount, plenty of junk food and Easter goodies, dried foods and baking supplies were very depleted, there was no yeast and no flour.
Beverages: hardly any bottled water. quite a bit of soda was in stock, there were lots of juice boxes and individual beverages, plenty of coffee and tea, Alcohol: Wine, beer, and hard soda pop was plentiful

CONCLUSION:

What they're saying about this all being because of "hoarders" is BS. The run on food happened 2-3 weeks ago. If there was food to be had, the stores would be selling it.

We are running out of things, maybe due to a lack of imports, and this is going to be painfully obvious soon. I'm sure they don't want people to freak out because the shelves are bare and perhaps they're hoping to have this resolved by the time lockdowns are over.

Yesterday during the press conference, the President warned us that we are looking at a terrible, difficult, hellish two to three weeks coming up due to the coronavirus. He's been reticent about giving specific warnings like this in the past.

Use this time you have very wisely. Make sure to harden your house in case of an uptick in crime (I wrote about that here) and do not blow through your supplies without replenishing them. Hopefully, I'm wrong and we're just waiting for that balance between supply and demand to return. If I am, then you've lost nothing by being better prepared and making your home more secure.

But if I'm right, you'll certainly be glad you took these extra weeks to get as ready as possible, because when everyone else finds out that this is the new normal, all hell is going to break loose. That last shopping frenzy will be nothing in comparison to the one that will come if things are truly not being replenished and the unprepared find out about it.

I don't write this to be an alarmist. I just want to provide you with the information that I have personally witnessed so you can apply it.

Love to all of you,
Daisy