Circuit Breaker – Day 8
I did something today that I haven’t done in a verrrry long time. I went grocery shopping. In a supermarket.
Since our Prime Minister went on television last week to ask seniors to stay at home, my highly at-risk elderly parents with chronic illnesses said to me, “Daniel, since you’re not bringing back any more rescued food, you got to go out and buy the groceries.” So I went to buy groceries, for the first time in 3 years.
Naturally, there are some changes from what I remember. The changes are familiar to all who have gone grocery shopping recently. Waiting outside the supermarket because it was too full (I’m going at 3am next time), queues being extra long because of the social distancing, everyone buying loads of stuff since they have to wait so long for their turn anyway.
But what really frustrated me was looking all over for the items that my household usually uses. I’m so used to a life where I make do with whatever I get for free, that it drove me nuts to hunt for specific items. Maybe next time I’ll just buy whatever, and make do with that instead. On the plus side, I know the names for most of the vegetables and fruits that I see nowadays.
Next, oh. my. god. Food is soooo expensive! I’m so used to spending less than $5 a year on food, so when I got 10 large onions and 2 packets of fresh red chillies, and the cash register rang up $5.70, I was like, wait, what? How is food this expensive? I think I need to go visit a bin.
I can’t wait for Covid to be over, so I can go back to a normal freegan lifestyle where I get free food and free everything else.
As a side note for those who have asked me: I used to do food rescue, but I’ve put that on hold because of social distancing and stay-at-home.
I strongly believe that adhering to the national Covid containment measures comes before the personal cause of reducing food waste. If the personal cause goes against the national cause, then we should put aside our personal cause for the greater good of the nation for the time being.
I acknowledge that not all food rescuers think the same way, and hope that whatever food rescue they continue to do, they don’t end up spreading Covid.
Daniel Tay 