So, adding insult to our various injuries...
Gasoline is up nearly 20 cents from a week or two ago.
Prices are up on MANY of the usual things I buy at the supermarket. Of course those have been creeping up for a while.
But worst of all, there are signs of shortages -- at least in paper goods. I'm late to the par-tay on this one, because I only got wind of it yesterday evening when I made that stop in a supermarket outside of my own local area, and noticed that their paper goods aisle was COMPLETELY EMPTY. Just like in spring of 2020. I kid you not.
I asked someone up front, saying I was only curious, but are we in an actual shortage again? She said not necessarily, but every time they stock up, their customers empty those shelves in pretty short order. She actually said "they seem to be pretty grabby around here", and "here" happens to be a fairly well to do community.
So this morning I checked in on the news, which I simply don't do every day, and sure enough, they're hinting at it, blaming it on the backlog at the ports. I said to myself, the HELL with this, and I just came back from two stores with a few 12-packs of toilet paper. We're good on paper towels here, and those seem to be in better supply. But I'll be taking inventory of what we've got, and damn it to HELL we're building that stash back up again. Not inordinately, but we're going to have at least a few months supply here, which we've basically done since things became available again after last time.
