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Home / New Zealand

Samantha Motion: Confessions of a coronavirus panic buyer

Samantha Motion
By Samantha Motion
Regional Content Leader·Bay of Plenty Times·
16 Mar, 2020 11:07 PM3 mins to read

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Not a roll in sight at this Countdown in February. Photo / File

Not a roll in sight at this Countdown in February. Photo / File

COMMENT

Two bags of spiral pasta, two bags of macaroni elbows, two jars of passata, two tins of canned peaches, an eight pack of three-ply long roll toilet rolls, four rolls of paper towels and four boxes of three-ply facial tissues.

I'm quite sure that when the hard-working soul who did my click-and-collect shop on Friday received my list, they knew who they were shopping for.

A panic buyer.

I'm not hiding from that label; I think the urge to stock up when we've all been told to prepare for two weeks of isolation is completely rational.

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I didn't go overboard and give in to my urge to buy a month's worth of food, like we had to growing up in a rural area nearly an hour from a supermarket.

I don't have a freezer full of peas, a secret stash of baked beans in the linen cupboard or a garage full of toilet rolls.

But I won't pretend that four bags of pasta and multiple packs of three varieties of paper are normal parts of my weekly supermarket shop for a household of two.

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I know the tissues bulk buy is what I should feel most ashamed of but I have no regrets.

Having had one or two or 20 colds in my life and I know there is nothing worse than having to sandpaper your poor, red, runny nose with the cheap stuff.

This wasn't even my first panic shop of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last month, in a state undeniably verging on panicky, I visited no more than four stores one morning trying to buy hand sanitiser.

I came home with the local dairy's last 30ml bottle, which was dug out of the back of a cupboard.

This inspired me to go home and do a little digging of my own. Between handbags, a first aid kit and an old toilet bag, I found four more 30ml bottles. Relief.

I don't know where this hoarding instinct comes from but queues in the supermarkets this week indicate I'm not alone.

Of course, stocking up can be taken too far. There's the hapless chap in the US who bought up tonnes of hygiene products to flick off with a mark-up but now finds himself stuck with them after online selling pages banned him for price gouging.

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That story that has delivered the perfect amount of righteous schadenfreude - pleasure in someone else's misfortune - for times such as these.

But let's not direct our anger towards the likes of him and start trolley-shaming everyday people doing a rational amount of stocking up.

If panic buying gives you some semblance of control and preparedness, I say go for it. But do it gradually and in reasonable amounts to avoid depriving others also in need.

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