HALT! Grocery Store Police!

If you're like me, you know, a human, then you're probably finding yourself going to grocery stores during this pandemic. If your stores are like the majority across the United States, then you've most likely been privy to the Grocery Store Police.

Now, these aren't the type of police who would inexplicably pull a gun on a Stormtrooper cos-player and violently cuff them, don't even get me started on that one. Rather, these are the folks patrolling the registers and posting notices under certain items to inform you that you have too much boxed mac and cheese, bottled water or toilet paper. Most of them get off on the extended amount of their authority, allotted to them by their equally power obsessed managers. They'll take any opportunity to exert themselves on you, because now they are in charge.

No longer is the customer always right. No. The customer is a hoarding, greedy and narcissistic person who is only in it for themselves. And, well, this is true.

However, here's the problem that this policing and limiting has created. When you tell people they can't have something, that it's limited to a strict amount, you instill a false sense of rarity. So what happens when you do that? Well, Average Joe and Jane are going to therefore make it a point to buy said item every time they see it. Regardless of whether or not they need it. This is more so amplified when said customer has a collector's mentality, and therefore equates rarity with an obsessive compulsive desire to have it.

How do I know this? Because that's exactly what I'm doing!

You want to know why I have ten cases of water and eight gallon jugs of water? Because the store has told me I cannot have this, with the exception of a maximum purchase of two. Therefore, my mind has rationalized that water is collectible, and when I see it, I buy it.

Mind you, this rationality isn't just limited to the realm of bottled variations of water. Nope. I have taken this concept to the depths of toilet paper, tissues, flour, certain cuts of meats, packaged pastas, etc.

Grocery stores have forced me to become a collector of your everyday common household items. I drive to multiple stores on the day that I go shopping, and I essentially buy what they have told me is rare. And guess what? I'm not the only person doing this.

What's happened is that these corporations, who have suddenly started treating this like a communist country, have caused more harm than help. They've instilled a false sense of rarity for these items, and as a result, EVERYBODY is buying them when they see them. Regardless of whether or not they need them.

Why is toilet paper sold out? Because when people see it, they buy it. Why? Because by forcing a mandatory limitation on items, grocery stores, in essence, have told you that if you don't buy it when you see it, you may never see it again.

Now, obviously, rational thinking would dictate that this simply isn't the case. I'm sure if you were to go to Charmin's factory or Deer Park's warehouse, that you would find pallets upon pallets of this stuff. It's not that it isn't available. It's that it isn't shipping fast enough to your local store. Possibly intentionally, to keep this false sense of rarity in place. These corporations, after all, are only in it for the money. The more pandemonium they can create, the more money they make.

As long as people are told things are limited and scarce, people will continue to react irrationally. Like I said, maybe that's what the corporations want. However, if you want to stop the hording, there's a pretty simple way to do it. Don't limit products.

Sounds so simple it's stupid. But in doing so, you have to take it another step. You also have to stipulate to customers, "Yes, you can buy twenty packs of toilet paper. HOWEVER, we are not offering refunds on any items purchased between this date and this date." You want to buy it all, you keep it all.

Yes, sure, these items will be sold out for a couple weeks while things return to normality. However, once people see that stores are regularly being stocked, and these items aren't disappearing overnight to everyone who's turned into a hoarder, people will also slow down on buying it. It's honestly no different than toy collecting. First come the scalpers, then the regular people follow behind. As scalpers stop buying, the shelves replenish.

People start to say, I don't need to buy a package of toilet paper because I have one at home and there are fifty different packs readily available. See how it works? I'm not saying it's a perfect plan. However, it's better than continuing to imply a scare tactic on people, causing them to buy for the sake of buying.

At least with my situation I can say that while I hoard, I don't do so for my own best interest. Sure, I benefit from it. However, I'm constantly reaching out to people to find out what they need and either hand delivering or mailing things out on a bi-weekly basis. Despite what you've seen in the pictures, it's often redistributed to those who can't go to grocery stores for health or financial reasons, usually at no request for money. Its simply my way of trying to help while scratching my collector itch. May as well, it's not like the comic shop is open.

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