JAMES LILEKS ON BUILDING BACK BRANDON:

I was getting my weekly hot dog from Walkin’ Dog, and took a few napkins out of the dispenser. They seemed thin. I waved them at the owner, and said Hey! How long have you been doing one-ply? I thought this was a two-ply kind of joint.

He laughed and admitted that yes, they were one-ply; he couldn’t get any two-ply tissues. He explained how he couldn’t get the straws he used to provide, either; the only ones available were too thin for the milkshakes he sold. He picked up a cup and said he couldn’t get the ones that were legal (I’m not sure what this means – some city reg, no doubt) and had to beg Coke for some supplies.

“We’re living in a one-ply world now,” I said. He agreed: one-ply world, all right.

Plus photos of plenty of empty supermarket shelves.”This could be a lack of people available to stock, I know. Could be a lot of things. What it isn’t is what we hoped the future would look like during the bare-shelves era of March 2020.”