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I woke up early, just in time to hear the start of the gunfire. While that sounds alarming, it’s not that unusual–we live about a half mile from a local gun range. What is disconcerting, but oddly normal, is how every adverse news event these days triggers a serious uptick in the use at the gun range.

A stock market drop can do it. Any one of our flavor-of-the-week mass shootings will do it. Political instability can do it. So you just know that the threat of corona virus has them all out blasting away at the range. After all, they may need that firepower if they run low on toilet paper.

I went grocery shopping two days ago. This was not some desperate, Mad Max, dash for supplies; it was my regular grocery day. I’d heard the toilet paper stories–with some mirth. But things were not so light-hearted at Costco. They had employees guarding the bathroom tissue, to ensure that the one-to-a-customer rule was enforced. Sheesh!

But what was of real concern was that it is clear that people are hoarding food. There were no bananas, no organic lettuce, no ground beef (regular or organic), no organic chicken and only a smattering of regular chicken. I actually found a package of organic chicken drumsticks, mixed in a section of chicken wings. I was holding it, looking for more, when a woman next to me tersely demanded to know where I’d found it. She looked tense, and her eyes were locked on my find.

I did find one package of “utility chicken”–cheap cuts that we buy to supplement the kittens’ food. I added that to my cart. In the canned goods department, people were filling their carts. It’s all a little disconcerting. When I got home, the utility chicken was not in with my groceries, nor on my receipt. Apparently somebody lifted it from my cart as I shopped. Sheesh. I spent far less than intended–but it’s a false savings, as it will require a second trip.

Yesterday they closed the schools and public facilities. We’ve had to cancel, or maybe postpone, our Beginning Beekeeping Class. I’m sad about that, but believe that caution is the best plan in these things. If most of us stay home for a bit, hopefully we can knock down this viral head of steam enough to preserve medical resources for those who’ll need them. It’s called flattening the curve. It’s not alarming, it’s just good sense.

But in the meantime, I wish those fools would lay off on the target practice. In the context of the rest of this, it is a bit unnerving.