Welcome to Author Next Door!

For a month and a half now, most of us have been under stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. When we’ve ventured out for groceries, we’ve witnessed extraordinary lines at local stores, with people standing six feet apart as they wait to get in wearing their face masks and rubber gloves. They’re usually holding wipes or hand sanitizer.

But getting inside the stores hasn’t guaranteed scoring the supplies you came for.

The first run was on toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning supplies. People also stockpiled bread, cans of tuna, vegetables, and cartons of pasta. Whole aisles were empty, save for cans of beets.

The next run was on baking items like flour and yeast, because stores were out of bread and people were trying to bake their own. Amazon was no exception to being sold out. For weeks I tried to buy flour but couldn’t, even on Amazon, unless I wanted to pay a month’s salary for a bag as big as my living room.

So, next time in Costco when I saw a large bag of flour, I immediately wrestled that sucker into my basket, paid for it, then fought to lift it out of my basket and into the back of my car. All 50 pounds of it!

Yes, I bought a 50-pound bag of all-purpose flour. By myself. For only $10.49.

I didn’t read the fine print, though. The cost of taking the flour home wasn’t just monetary.

It was time needed to transfer the flour into smaller containers for storage in my garage freezer. And, since my husband wasn’t there to help me, the cost was a pulled shoulder blade muscle as well as a stress fracture in my left foot. A visit to the doctor. No playing pickleball for 4-6 weeks while my foot heals. Who knew?

My neighbors were sympathetic. I did email to let them know I’d let them borrow flour if they needed it. Some already have taken advantage of my offer. This is a very good year to be on my nice list!

I can’t blame the pandemic, or Costco, or my husband. I made a choice. I will say, I’d do it all again, except next time…next time time I’d track down an employee and get help!

The flour went in my freezer. The picture of that flour is going in the same drawer as what’s left of the 10-inch round, three-wick Y2K candle I bought twenty years ago.

What can I say? I like to be prepared!

May you be safe and healthy,

Karen Taylor Saunders