Shopping During Covid 19
I don’t shop like others. I grew up in a military family where money was tight and my mother would shop on a weekly basis, with meals often determined by how much longer it was until the once a month pay check would arrive. After my father retired though, my mother started doing her main shopping once a month. That’s when my parents would go to the closest military commissary, first the Granite City Depot commissary, then after Interstate Highway 64 was built, to the Scott Air Force Base Commissary. I didn’t realize back then, what a savings shopping at the commissary was for my parents, with a house full of kids.Later, after I joined the Air Force myself, and became a Services Officer, my unit had “oversight” over the Base Exchanges and Commissaries on the bases we were stationed at, and I learned very quickly that they sold items for cost plus a minimal surcharge which covered operating costs. Any profits made by local BX and Commissary facilities were turned back into improving base facilities for military personnel.
When we retired from the Air Force and moved back to St Louis, I told Mike, I planned to go to the Scott Commissary. He laughed and told me with Dierbergs and Schnucks and Shop n Save and all the other local grocery stores around me that would be a waste of my time. I persisted though, and once we got things unpacked and settled, I planned a day to go to the commissary and pick up all the basic staples that I was unable to bring back from Germany with me. Mike went with me and it was very eye opening for him to say the least.
Look at the price on this! Do you know what I’ve been paying at Dierbergs for this? Look at this? I haven’t seen this in any of the local grocery stores! It was amazing how quickly his attitude toward shopping at the base changed when he realized the price differences along with the international selection of items that the base provided. We fell into a routine of getting the non-perishables and frozen items at the base and then supplementing the perishable (milk, eggs, fresh bread, fresh produce) in between base trips from Dierbergs and Schnucks.
Initially, we set up a routine of going over to Scott about once a month, though as time went on, we found that often ended up being every other month and sometimes every 3 months as we became busier and busier. As we got older and started to have medical “issues”, we started to use the Base Pharmacy as well – with 90 day prescriptions, refillable for a year, with no copay or deductible, the savings were tremendous, but it did cause us to need to set up a trip to the base at least every 3 months to get our prescriptions.
That changed a bit once Mike started working at the base. Since he was already over there, he could easily pick up prescriptions and the odd item here and there when it was needed without my making the long trip over (though since he rode Metro Link back and forth, big items waited until I went or he had to drive over due to very late in the day meeting or a function off base he needed to attend.
Regular BX and Commissary trips became a bit more fluid, sometimes once a month, sometimes every couple of months and occasionally even every 3 or even 4 months. With both a husband and son who like to hunt, I typically have a full size freezer that is full of venison, a side by side refrigerator in the basement filled with frozen items, dairy products and items that are kept best for longer time periods if refrigerated. When we did go to the base to do the shopping, we would both drive over, knowing that since we were stocking up for 2-3 months of non-perishables, one car wouldn’t be able to hold everything (bulk or multiple packages of paper towels, toilet paper and kleenix very quickly fill a trunk or backseat and if one carries coolers to put the frozen and refrigerated products in, they take up additional space over paper bags of food).
Why is this of any importance? It became important when COVID hit. We went to the base in late January 2020, and did our regular shopping, figuring we’d be back in 2-3 months. Then COVID hit, but because of our shopping habits, even though we were sheltering in place at home, even though we weren’t eating out like we had been, we had enough food and paper goods to see us through initially. The few things we lacked, for the most part we could do without, or with watching the local stores could purchase locally. While others were lamenting the empty shelves in the local stores, we were OK. We had enough toilet paper and paper towels.
Like everyone else, though I noticed the shortages in the stores. At Costco one day, I walked by an aisle endcap between the clothing and food sections that had a display of toilet paper! With an upcoming food drive in mind, I picked up some toilet paper to donate. Awhile later, when I had made it to the section that normally had toilet paper in it, I overheard a store employee telling a customer that they didn’t have any toilet paper in the store and after the employee walked away, went over and told the customer where I had found it. When I walked that way later, the display was totally gone, even the pallets already removed.
I went to Dierbergs and Schnucks and saw the signs limiting the amounts of meats and papergoods and hand soaps (not just sanitizer) that one could purchase IF there was any on the shelf and often the shelves were bare. Toilet paper was now sold by the roll rather than the package and often it was commercial grade rather than the more luxurious home grades that that the stores use to sell. With my allergies causing a constant runny nose, the one thing I was concerned about was Kleenix and I was excited when I found it in a 6 pack of boutique size boxes rather than individual count, at a store with signs saying one paper product per customer. Gloves became another “big find” when I found them at Costco and at Dierbergs.
When it came time to pick up our prescriptions in April, the base was limiting retirees to coming to base to one person per family and with restrictions on what day they could come, so Mike went without me. There were things that he wasn’t able to get and he complained about empty shelves and the lack of variety, but he was still able to pick up enough to keep us going (with local stores providing the perishables) until July when it was time to pick up prescriptions again.
This time, we were both allowed to go and I saw what Mike had seen in April. The BX and Commissary were out of many things that I was accustomed to seeing and shelves were not nearly as full as normal. It seemed like they had less variety, so they gave individual items more shelf space then they have in the past. That said, while my preferred brands and specific items weren’t always available, there was typically an item that was available that I could substitute. As we checked out, I noticed, in my mind’s eye, that while we hadn’t gotten any more than normal and had actually gotten less meats and other expensive items, our bill was considerably higher than it normally is, a stark reality check of how much higher food costs have become over the past few months.
The only thing that wasn’t available at the main Base Exchange or the Commissary was hand sanitizer or wipes. They had tiny travel size bottles and an aerosol spray can of off brand sanitizer, but no liquid hand sanitizer. When Mike had gone in April, he had decided we still had plenty and hadn’t picked any up and now it wasn’t available. I had seen some recently at the stores I had visited around St Louis, so I was resigned to searching local stores in the hopes of finding someone who still had some.
The last stop on our list before we left base, was the Class 6 store (that’s liquor store for civilians) which is inside the Scott Shoppette. As we were checking out with our German wines and some beer, the sales clerk asked us if we’d found everything we needed. I replied that hand sanitizer was the only product we hadn’t been able to find anywhere on base. From underneath the counter, the shoppette manager pulled out the last remaining bottle he had in the store and sold it to us. The hand sanitizer was made by Good Spirits Distillery, who had switched from vodka to sanitizer when COVID started, and in the process had more than tripled their staff, making a point of hiring local individuals who were laid off by local restaurants.
As I drove home, I thanked my lucky stars that my shopping habits aren’t like other people’s and I had had enough on hand to see me through the initial phase of sheltering in place and to hope that with this trip, I’ll have enough on hand to see me through the shutdowns now being caused by the resurgence of the virus as people forgo the safety precautions thinking we are past the worst of this.
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