The "Laughing My Way Through Adversity" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Walking through the grocery store with my wife doing our weekly grocery shopping.  We were told that the shelves may be empty in some areas of the store, but we weren't prepared for what we encountered.  

Pasta shelf has very little left on it.

Almost all the pasta was missing from the shelves as was the sauces on the opposite side of the aisle.  The next aisle we entered was not quite as empty, but the canned vegetables were over half gone and the majority of my favorite soups were gone.  The next aisle looked untouched, but that was the pet food aisle.  

Pasta sauce was also empty.

I must admit I took the last big plastic tub of cat litter, but most of the types of cat food we buy were over half filled on the shelves.  But...when we turned the corner into the next aisle...it was almost void of EVERYTHING!  Absolutely no toilet paper, only a few boxes of tissues and even the paper plates were mostly gone.  

Toilet paper and paper towels are non-existent.

There were about a half-dozen rolls of paper towels, but that was one item we had plenty of at home already.  The next aisle was filled with plenty of greeting cards, magazines and Easter candy.  Actually we didn't encounter anyone in the aisle; as they were rushing to buy other needed items before they were all gone.  The frozen food aisle was missing quite a few types of frozen vegetables, but the ice cream and popsicles was well stocked.  Drugs, shampoo, bandaids, etc. were filled, but there was a totally empty space were the hand sanitizer had been last week.  

Most of the cans of our favorite soups were gone!

The final aisle was filled with bread and rolls, but the yogurt was getting empty and the only carton of eggs had two missing and a few broken in it.  The meats and fish aisle across the back of the store was nicely packed as were the store-made cookies and muffins.   A final stop at the salad bar found it fully stocked with all my favorite ingredients.  After checking out and heading home, the phone rang and Carol's good friend Marg was on the other end of the line.  

Another part of the soup aisle was also empty.

They had just returned home from their grocery store to the north of our grocery store and reported it was well stocked except for the toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  All that you have just read happened two days ago.  Yesterday we made a trip to the grocery store to our north where Marg and her husband had been shopping.  To our surprise we found it fairly well-stocked.  There home made items such as baked oatmeal and donuts were very low, but we found everything we wanted.  The deli counter was filled except for a few types of lunchmeat.  We found the eggs we needed, but after checking the first box found one broken.  The next box had two missing, but after a bit of rearranging the boxes, I had the full box of good eggs in the cart.  Plenty of produce as well as other items and we left with the few items we hadn't found the day before.  Then as Carol and I sat in our lounge chairs watching a few new TV shows, since there was no NCAA basketball on TV, she held her iPad up for me to see...it was a photograph taken on the island of Sint Maarten at a jewelry store we visit from time to time when on the island.  There was a half-filled bottle of Purell hand sanitizer.  The little black note next to it read: buy this half full bottle of Purell Hand Sanitizer for $1,099 and get this DIAMOND RING FREE!  Great advertising!!  I'm glad we are not currently on the island or we may have taken that back to our rental. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Great bit of advertising!

PS - I found this a few minutes ago at a nearby house that has flamingos all over the yard.  Pretty funny!