Part One: Why Worry?
By: Marcy Barthelette
You may ask, enough of what? A few weeks ago the answer might have been enough clothing and toiletries packed for a vacation or business trip? Perhaps it would have been, do I have enough food for the dinner party we are hosting tomorrow evening? Or maybe, have we set aside enough for the kids’ college fund and for our own retirement.
Today, it seems our biggest worry is where the next roll of toilet paper will come from. Americans have been issued a wake-up call! It’s time to start seeing toilet paper in a new light.
On March 11…I am sure of the date because I took it from my COVID 19 journal…Ken and I decided that it might be best to give credence to the chatter we were hearing regarding a possible epidemic. It still seemed remote, after all, it began in China and seemed unlikely to affect us too much. We embarked on an epic shopping trip to stock up on needed items just in case. You can’t imagine our surprise when we found shelves in the paper supply section at Wal Mart stripped completely bare of stock. We shook our heads in disbelief, Ken took a picture as proof, we grumbled a bit with other customers and went on about the rest of our shopping.
At the self-check register, I asked the monitor when she thought they would restock toilet paper and she said they couldn’t keep it on the shelves and she didn’t know if they would get any more on their truck. Shortly after that, she received a message on her headphone that TP was being stocked. Ken went back to check it out while I continued at the register. He returned shortly, hands held high, clutching a 6 pack of Charmin Ultra Soft, our favorite brand! We were ecstatic! Who could have known that two fully grown adults could get so excited about a package of toilet paper?
Before we left the store, I had a breaking news announcement on my phone. The World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic.
In the blink of an eye, a scary new word had become a trigger for everyone to fly into full panic mode, rushing to the stores to grab anything deemed necessary during a time of crisis. We didn’t really know what this crisis would ultimately look like but we wanted to be ready. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t choose wisely in the beginning. I’ve been a pretty fast learner but in those early days, I operated on gut reaction. They say there is a worrier in every family and it’s widely known that I am the designated “worrywart” in ours. I have to say I was edging toward paranoia worrying about what to do if we did, in fact, run out of toilet paper. Those of us whose memories include outhouses stocked with Sears catalog pages have long since scrubbed those memories from our daily lives. Anything less than plenty of Charmin in the cabinet was unthinkable!
After a couple of weeks of this new insanity, I was able to get a grip on my emotions and learn to shop with safety precautions in place. Eventually, I even found toilet paper. It wasn’t Charmin, or even very soft, but I finally had a small stock of paper. And that package of Charmin Ultra Soft that we scored on March 11, well, it is April 26 as I write and that package is still unopened. It seems that by being a little thriftier in our usage, we already had enough in our home…enough toilet paper, at least.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Matthew 6:34a NIV
Look at the birds in the sky! They don’t plant or harvest. They don’t even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren’t you worth much more than birds? Matthew 6:26 CEV
Do you have enough trust to go the distance?
To be continued……
To be continued……
