The great toilet paper shortage

Other generations have endured trying times, the challenges they faced during the likes of the great depressions, or the 1956 flood. Though I can’t help but think something is very different now, like the absence of an actual threat, a threat that actually requires more toilet paper? 

Store shelves are empty of toilet paper. Empty locally, empty regionally and empty in metro areas. The panic and pandemonium have spread faster than the coronavirus ever could have dreamed. 

IGA Barham’s Glenn Faul has been cleaned out as roving masses search for an opportunity to profiteer and hoard large supplies of a basic essential. 

“We don’t know when we will see our orders. 

“We have tried ordering different lines and from different sources and still no luck,” said Glenn. 

“We had to put limits on purchases as people from as far as Ivanhoe, were buying stock to take back.” 

Online marketplaces have been littered with people charging huge prices for a packet of toilet paper. 

“What happens to us normal people who just buy what we need weekly?” one shopper who wished to remain anonymous lamented. 

Last week the NT Daily Newspaper dedicated 8 full pages to stencils of toilet paper. Many an Aussie bum would not have ever endured the harshness of newsprint... Maybe newspaper sales will look up? 

Lions members running a Driver Reviver in Kerang at the weekend witnessed what they thought were customers arriving, only to watch them clean out the public toilets of toilet paper, and drive off. 

Is this a wake up call for a country that relies so heavily on imports? Or does the mentality that drives these sorts of events also prevent asking the important questions? 

Most of our toilet paper is manufactured in Australia, and we still can’t compete with the mob mentality. 

As a net importer of fresh fruit and vegetables, manufactured goods and most of what we find on our shop shelves, what would happen with a shipping strike? Or another world war? Would people then act more civilised than they currently are? I won’t hold my breath.