Wyn Drabble would like to know why people panic buy when there's plenty to go around if everyone shopped normally. Photo / NZME
Wyn Drabble would like to know why people panic buy when there's plenty to go around if everyone shopped normally. Photo / NZME
It was a laidback, Sunday-morning, open-air market visit. On offer were baked goods, fresh fruit and vegetables, coffee, old stuff (assorted and some of it of dubious worth), macrame dream catchers and papier mache mushrooms.
The summer sun was beating down, the mood was relaxed and so was Madame Dogon her leash. Some people wore masks, others didn't. There was only close contact if you were buying something.
Then, apparently, came the official announcement. We didn't realise the impact this would have on our local community until we stopped for a single purchase from our supermarket on the way home.
The world had, in that short space of time, changed. To all intents and purposes, war had broken out and things would never be the same again.
As an intrepid journalist, I wanted to know why so many people felt the sudden need to overfill supermarket trolleys in the manner made famous by the pre-Christmas rush – only worse.
Just half an hour after it had been as peaceful as a normal supermarket can be, this supermarket was a horrible and bewildering place. To make matters worse, there was even a shortage of baskets and trolleys. And the waiting checkout queue snaked through the supermarket like a trolley millipede with wheels for legs.
Wyn Drabble
The millipede was clearly frazzled so it didn't feel appropriate to interview shoppers in situ. But I did need to capture all this in words.
Then I had an idea. I would simply make it up, make up the responses of the imaginary people I interviewed. Yes, fiction would be the safest option.
Me: Sorry to disturb you but may I be so bold as to ask why you have come out into the midst of all this hurlyburly to fill a trolley with enough stuff for four rugby teams and a tribe of teenagers?
Customer 1 (peeping over the load): Covid.
Me: But there's no lockdown. We're in the new traffic light system.
Customer 1: Bloody government!
Me: Hello. Are you please able to tell me why you're stocking up large?
Customer 2 (suddenly veering off and running away): OMG! I've forgotten the toilet paper!
Me: Hello. Why the stockpiling?
Customer 3 (turning and running): OMG! I've forgotten to get paracetamol.
Me: Hi. Would you mind telling me why you're stocking up?
Customer 5: Apparently Auntie Cindy made an announcement!
Me: What was it?
Customer 5: I don't know.
Me: Excuse me, sir. Might buying 14 bags of flour be seen as panic buying?
Customer 6: Not at all. I'm doing it in a very relaxed manner.
Me: Might it even be seen as selfish?
Customer 6: No it's the panic buyers who are being selfish.
Me: Hello, madam. Why are you stocking up?
Customer 7: Well, I've got a friend coming over tomorrow. Valmai, the one who married my brother, always comes for a chat on Mondays though she couldn't come last week because of an appointment to have her hip seen to. No wait, that was the week before. Anyway, I always try to buy a bit of something that looks homemade – mind you she doesn't like anything too crunchy – her dentures, you know. I got hokey pokey biscuits one time – never heard the end of it.
Me: And all the rest of the stuff in your trolley?
Customer 7: Better to be safe than sorry, I always say.
Me: Hello, young man. Why aren't you stocking up like everyone else?
Customer 8: Oh, haha, I'm just here as an interested observer of human behaviour.
Customer 7 (interrupting): No, come to think of it, the hip appointment WAS last week.
• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
