[tempus vernum]

Originally Posted by deena

I had a very similar experience a few weeks ago. I said to dh that it felt like walking through one of those sad stores that was on its way out of business like Sears. Very eerie. Back in rural Maine it was fine but here in the more big-city area its not, I wonder if that's the difference. Fascinating to watch though. Kind of like when Barnes and Noble put small bookstores out of business and then Amazon squashed them.

I was thinking this recently as well except Walmart’s here are super well stocked except groceries

Around here it’s local grocery stores like Woodmans who are taking business from Walmart so that part is interesting... relatively small businesses

I *think* in my city Walmart is most easily accessible for groceries and a one stop shop. You could go ONLY to Walmart and ONE stop and get everything you need for your house bodies and food. So when the panic about stockpiling hits people go to Walmart first. The barest shelves I’ve ever seen were at Walmart. Add in an employee shortage everywhere and you have an appearance of a sad store.

We’ve not seen actual shortages here, just places that don’t have things in stock other stores do. Which means we must choose between eating something else and making a second and sometimes 3rd stop.