Today was my day to brave shopping at Walmart. It's been about 6 weeks since I was there. I planned to pickup groceries and my prescriptions. They have a dedicated hour (1st hour they're open in the morning) just for codgers, the halt and the lame. First problem with that is that their pharmacy opens an hour later.
As the closest Walmart to Virginia Tech, I'm used to seeing it less populated during spring break, etc. Today, home-made mask covering my face, I saw an average of one shopper for every two isles. Spooky. They had plenty of most things. Surprisingly, with the US pork production industry quickly shutting down, I was able to buy breakfast sausage, bacon, cured ham and hot dogs at their usual price--plenty there. I expected no toilet paper, and indeed, there was not a single roll to be had. Didn't need any. What does puzzle me is their total absence of paper towels. Where the hell are they all going? I picked up three 100-packs of "strong, heavy" paper napkins in their stead.
Decent olive oil was MIA, as was yeast and most wheat flour, other than biscuit flour. Of course, who would ever want whole wheat flour? They had a shelf full of it. So I snagged a bag. But nearly everything else one might expect in the way of groceries were amply stocked (except for the cheapest, small tube biscuits). FYI they had a wide selection of vegetable seed.
With a brimming shopping cart--unusual for me, I went over to the now-opened pharmacy. No wait. Curiously, they were remarkably low on antacids of all sorts.
All in all, the experience was less trying than I had expected it to be. When I got home, the refrigerated and frozen stuff was put into their respective compartments. Everything else--the room temperature stuff--was left in their bags on the kitchen floor, where they will sit for 2 or 3 days, before I put them away. I then washed the cooties off my pink, little hands.
I'll let you know within two weeks if I caught the coronavirus while there.
Bob