Pandemic Dilemma

Well, it’s three in the afternoon and I just sat outside in the sunshine on the back deck eating flourless chocolate cake because that seemed like an appropriate response to the shelter-in-place order that came blaring out of our of cell phones last night (Thursday) and took effect at 8 am this morning. I mean, why not?
Whether to use our remaining eight eggs to make said cake was just one of the weird dilemmas that has emerged for me during this time. The answers to the big questions have been clear—no, I shouldn’t get on a plane and travel; no, I shouldn’t go to the salon to get my hair cut (and the governor solved this one for me by closing salons before my appointment); no, I shouldn’t be hanging out in coffee shops or restaurants. All made moot at this point by our stay-at-home order. Still, those questions I was prepared for. But the smaller questions I bump against every day are the surprising ones.
I actually only had seven eggs and had to borrow one from neighbor for the cake—don’t worry, we were appropriately socially distant and hand-washy for the transaction. For a bit of fun, I turned to my FB friends for a vote on this particular pandemic decision. The trend was clear. 90% of voters gave resounding support to cake being the correct use of my limited supply of eggs. In fact, they said things like, “You are not guaranteed tomorrow” and “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what the question is.” As for one KB who shook her head in a vigorous “no” via a GIF, sorry, you were over ruled and thank goodness for that. The cake has been VERY popular among my family.
The use of all our eggs lead to another surprising dilemma. My husband went grocery shopping a few days ago and, of course, eggs were on the list. He called to say I had a choice regarding the eggs: none or five dozen. I chose five dozen. Now I feel like I could write a Dr. Suess book with my egg options—raw eggs, hard boiled eggs, frozen eggs. Which brings me to tell you I discovered something handy—you can freeze eggs. You crack them, whip them (taking care not to add too much air) and then freeze for use. I used ice cube trays. Each cavity holds 1/2 of a large egg. Once they are solidly frozen, turn them out into a zip top bag.
We also got caught in the question of toilet paper. We were running low even before this virus thing hit hard in our community so I figured we should replenish our supply. Once again, a call from my husband at the store. No TP. But they did have some big industrial style rolls, the kind you find in the dispenser at a large store. I could get that, he said. That seemed fine and better than no TP. And while it certainly IS better than none, let me warn you. This supposedly two-ply paper is VERY thin and scratchy and takes quite a handful to actually turn into enough to do any good.
I imagined him coming home with one gigantic roll of the stuff but, of course, since he was at a warehouse-style store, they came in a box of six! I wish I could say we’ve got enough to last the next six months but the inferior quality means we will run out before summer. Hopefully stores will have the good stuff before then.
We’re also rich in subpar paper towels. Again, none of the regular household stuff was available but there were rolls good for a retail dispenser. And also in a box of six. So for quite a while, we’re going to feel like we’re at Target every time we use TP or paper towels. All that’s missing are the industrial sized dispensers. Maybe that’s next.
I’m sure there are many more dilemmas to come since we’re just a few short weeks into this. Next up: whether we buy some of the “good” TP whenever we see it and save the half-ply stuff for back up or does that qualify as hoarding? I turned down decent paper towels the other day but soft TP may be another story.
Who knows what quandary is next.