The Coronavirus hysteria has resulted in a couple of different supermarket items facing a nationwide following a week of panic shopping by concerned Australians.
Number one, face masks. And number two, toilet paper. Which is weird.
While dust masks look to run in the next week with no re-orders from America or China in sight, toilet paper manufacturers are now moving into 24-hour production.
Major supermarket chains ramp up supplies of long-life pantry items, but for some reason, canned beans aren’t flying off the shelf as fast as toilet paper. Which no one can explain.
Even Prime Minister Scotty From Marketing made a rare call to the chief executives of Woolworths and Coles on Tuesday. Not because of the wage theft they routinely engage in with their overworked employees, or the stranglehold they have on struggling beef and dairy farmers – but because he wanted to see that they weren’t getting overwhelmed with all of the panic-buying across the country.
Coles and Woolworths said they had briefed both federal and state governments and had begun stockpiling toilet paper, tissues and Panadol and long-life pantry products. Neither supermarket currently has plans to implement buying restrictions for in-demand products, because why the fuck would they.
However, in the small business arena, there seems to be a little bit of foul play, as evident in the iconic Betoota Heights convenience store, known as only as CON’S CIGARETTES AND FRUIT.
Con Andronicus, a 3rd-generation corner store and milk bar cafe owner, is flogging off individual toilet paper rolls at fifteen bucks a pop.
When it comes to revisionist history, Con is doing a better job than the local Betoota Grove Anglican high school’s modern history modules on Australian White Settlement and the Iraq War.
“What do you mean, mate” Con shouts at a lippy panic buyer.
“This shit has always been 15 bucks a pop. You need to shit or what?’
It’s now evident that not even Con knows why, in this pandemic of respiratory infections, people are buying toilet paper of all things.
Because there is nothing pointing to the fact that this virus doesn’t make you want to shit.
“Also all non perishable items. 20 dollars a can” he says.
