Who panic buys a sideboard?!

Stuff I have found myself panic buying because of Coronavirus 

It started with a new sideboard.

Though the use of the word “new” in that sentence would imply there was an old sideboard.   There wasn’t, there has never been a sideboard in this house.  Yet as soon as the lockdown was announced I decided we had to have one for the office which duly arrived several days later.  Knowing the shelves were filled with books I have previously bought and will never get around to reading,  and the top displaying Mr B’s ever- growing antique camera collection,  seemed to calm my increasing sense of panic.

Writing about the sideboard reminds me that I also then panic bought 50 blank greetings cards so I could write to people weekly in the hope some snail mail might cheer them up.   They were duly shoved in the newly designated “drawer of useful things” in the new sideboard.    I should probably get around to writing some at some point.

Next I found myself panic buying those tiny wet wipes you get with your airline meal.  500 of them.  In the absence of anti-bac soap (or indeed any kind of soap) I thought these would be useful to have in every handbag, in the car, by the front door, to hand out to people in general.   They aren’t.   They are a pain in the arse and you then have a potential weapon of mass destruction festering on a 1 inch square after each use.

Plants have featured heavily in my panic buying too.  Supermarket shelves were being stripped bare of food and somewhere in my brain I translated that as “we will starve to death” which migrated into “no we won’t if we have plants.  We must have plants”.

I suddenly turned into Barbara Good and proclaimed that we must be self sufficient, honestly if I could have bought chickens and a pig I probably would have done.   I panic bought a stack of vegetable plants for the garden that probably won’t be ready to eat until about 2022, and that is reliant on my not killing them first.   I don’t even know what half of them are.  And the other half of them are probably things none of us eat, like courgettes.

Not content with planting up two old metal ice buckets and a wooden planter with herbs from collections called “boozy” and “bees” I then covered the window sill in the kitchen with more herbs, all with Latin names so I have no idea what they are.  I could Google the names except so worried was I that the packaging would kill us I instantly binned all of it, inadvertently including all the plant names and growing instructions.

Thoughts then turned to personal hygiene with the purchase of 12 roll on deodorants and three fake nail kits.   Because you know, in the midst of a global pandemic nice nails are are essential.

Weirdly since lock down began I havent bought the things that most people are panic buying because we often shop at the local cash and carry so buying loo rolls in packs of 48 is the norm.  My granny, god rest her soul, was a loo roll hoarder of legendary proportions (96 I think was the highest count we ever go to.  32 was the lowest) and I seem to have inherited that trait.   We also still have the pasta and tuna fish, and bizarrely pitta bread and hot dogs, that Mr B stocked up with when we were worried Brexit would interrupt food supplies.  Twice.  So the one thing we haven’t panic bought is anything food related, though I am not the only one doing so in this house it would seem.

At some point last week a picture framing kit appeared and there was a suggestion that the old patio table can be sacrificed as practice runs.

Also since lockdown Mr B has decided, along with picture framing,  to turn his hand to brewing beer, having panic bought a complete “brew your own beer” kit online a week ago.  It was set up and the fermentation process begun within minutes of arrival.  There is a rumour that it will be ready this weekend, which is sooner than the recently acquired hair clippers will be put to use.   To be honest those terrify me and I have told Mr B in no uncertain terms that I am NOT going to be cutting his hair with them anytime soon.  Can you imagine the fall out if it all went wrong?

Does anyone know if you could get a DIY divorce kit online?

Image of woman clutching groceries  courtesy of Shutterstock