Thursday, March 12, 2020

Tonight I tried to buy some toilet paper in America: I was unsuccessful.


I have purchased toilet paper so many times before.

Mind you, I didn’t try very hard, but why should I have to? My trusty, revered, hallowed HEB, was out. This has to be a sign of an impending apocalypse.  

That may sound flippant, but it got worse.  Toilet paper is relatively cheap. Scooping up all that inexpensive tissue can’t be too hard, but the hand sanitizer section was completely empty too. A much more expensive commodity. How can I explain this? 

Honestly, I do not take this pandemic lightly. I have children, one of whom is currently on a school trip to another state. I have parents and siblings, and friends who have recently visited other countries. I live in a city that has taken in cruise ship passengers and China evacuees.   My dad is actually in a hospital right now with a brain bleed from a fall on a trip.  I run a youth serving nonprofit.  I have spent the past week (Spring Break) fielding questions and demands about how to respond to this crisis, as if I am an infectious disease specialist.* I hope I am making good decisions, but who knows? 

It’s Spring Break, and I am supposed to be on vacation, but I won’t sleep well tonight.  I’m worried about the employee we sent home to quarantine today, and the one who comes back from Europe next week.  I’m worried about how the children and families we serve at my nonprofit will cope with this crisis.  Their schools haven’t closed yet, but it feels like that's only a matter of time, which will have devastating impacts on their lives, in so many ways.  I’m wondering how I can help, but considering I'm being compelled to figure out how to decrease, restrict, restrain and curtail our regular youth programming and operations, how can I possibly increase our assistance?  

I feel inadequate.  

If I can’t even buy toilet paper in America, how can I be useful in this epidemic?  To require a social worker (me, at the core) to stay home and "social distance" at a time when people need help more than ever feels somehow wrong, but the path forward for me, or for the social service organization I run, is unclear.  

I welcome and appreciate any advice. I can't even buy toilet paper effectively today. 
 
No toilet paper
No hand sanitizer

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*Other duties as assigned. #nonprofitlife