My genes want me to panic

Iwas hovering my mouse over my online shopping list, wondering if I should double or triple my purchases. It’s not that I’m panicked about running out of groceries but, it seems, other people are. Which could mean shops may run out of products, which in turn is forcing me into considering panic buying.

And perhaps I should be worrying about toilet paper, as apparently everyone else in the Western World is. Stockpiling is in my blood. I come from a long line of hoarders; parents and grandparents who lived through wars and the Great Depression.

I used to laugh at Mum washing and reusing the Glad Wrap. ‘‘It loses its cling, Mum.’’ But in the last few years, with the growing concern over global warming, I realise I’m becoming just like her.

I’ve been trying to do my part to save the world by keeping jars, buying reusable lunch wrap, reusing wrapping paper and freezing chicken stock.

I haven’t been able to go as far as Mum did when she saved apple paper on a safety pin to use as toilet paper. But Mum, you’re back in vogue. There’s a worldwide run on toilet paper and you had the answer way back then.

Panic buying and fear-based hoarding isn’t new. Remember the 1973 oil crisis or the global rice shortage in 2008? And there was a rush on goods prior to Hurricane Katrina and after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The good old Americans stockpiled rifles after Obama’s election, fearing they would be banned. They also did a run on ammunition after a school shooting.

Hilariously, New Zealand’s claim to nationwide stockpiling came in the form of Marmite, when we were warned of a pending shortage in what was dubbed Marmageddon.

But frenzied buying has gone to a whole new level now that a large part of the world’s population is stressed about supplies thanks to the Covid-19 virus.

It felt almost post-apocalyptic last week, watching scenes of Australian security guards protecting limited supplies of toilet paper. One chap was even Tasered after getting into a loopaper punchup. In the United States, retailers have capped individual purchases of sanitisation, cold and flurelated products and face masks. In Hong Kong, thieves bizarrely held up a supermarket to steal a delivery.

Of course, there is always someone up for making a quick buck. On auction site eBay, a 20-pack of 3-ply toilet paper had 23 bids and was going for about $70 with 10 hours left to go.

British research shows one in 10 people are stockpiling and one in three are concerned about having access to enough food if they have to selfisolate. Evidently, anti-Brexit survivalists have renamed their stockpiles ‘‘coronavirus cupboards’’, amusingly stacked with dried porcini, chorizo and eco-nappies.

I’m not sure we Kiwis consider those ‘‘essentials’’. Here we’ve stuck to basics, with a run on loo paper, water bottles and sanitation products.

Frankly, I’m not very impressed with the panickers. More demand pushes prices up and, goodness knows, we’re already struggling to pay the grocery bill. So, even if I wanted to panic and stockpile, I probably couldn’t afford it.

For me, though, I’m fine thanks to my lineage of stockpilers. After years of harassment from my family, at last I get to say that all the stuff I’ve squished into cupboards and the freezer will finally be useful.

I guess on one level it simply gets back to what we all eventually come to understand: mothers are always right.