For the Love of God, Bring Back 24-Hour Grocery Stores

The heavy-handed powers that be need to hit the pre-COVID reset button

*Deep sigh* OK, so I realize the post-Covid world is no longer the pre-Covid, shiny, happy people holding hands-esque place it once was. Nevertheless, I'm officially at my wit's end with these unnecessary, indefinite changes.

Call me a Covidiot, but I never really understood why they needed to not only close every "non-essential" business known to man — funny how all businesses needed to do was add a few supplies to their inventory to suddenly become essential — But what I really did not understand was why store hours needed to be changed indefinitely.

Now, I'm not saying…

Look, I get it; at first, Americans were behaving like stark-raving lunatics (or maybe stock-raving) an hour before the apocalypse — hoarding supplies and groceries as if we'd never get a shipment again. Also, given that most people were out shopping rather than trying to slow the spread (Yes, I did say slow the spread, not stop it; experts told us that everyone would be exposed to Covid from the very beginning, and the only thing we could do was slow it down to ensure that hospitals were not overwhelmed with patients).

It does make sense why many stores had to close overnight during the beginning of the pandemic. For instance, many of my local grocery stores needed to close in order to restock and give those registers a rest.

Nevertheless, I certainly never understand why nightly shutdowns were included in the Covid restrictions. I mean, as far as I know, viruses are not nocturnal, and providing people with fewer hours to shop only forced more of us to pack into essential stores during the day.

Look, I'm not here for any more debates on this topic; just know the word "science" will forever be questionable. Scientists all have their opinions, and while some favored these restrictions, others did not. In other words, you have your opinions, and I have mine.

But I will post a report by the Washington Policy Center that reinforces my opinions. So if you want to debate someone on this topic, try the "experts" and not my comments! I touched on this topic because it's relevant, but I'm just a writer with strong opinions. If you want to argue, click the link; there's contact information available!

Whether you agree with me or not, I think we can all agree that there's no good reason for this to still be the case post-pandemic!

Why. Am. I. Still. Expected. To. Shop. With. The. Normies?!

Listen, most of the stores in my area now close at midnight at the latest! As a socially-selective introvert, this is unacceptable! Where are the 24-hour grocery stores?!

Going to the grocery store in the wee hours of the morning is like therapy to me. There are no lines, most products have been recently replenished, and I never have to worry about random people walking over to me to ask me to direct them to the relish or to tell me some dumb dad joke about grocery aisle traffic jams.

Do you know how many days I wake up and grab my grocery list only to realize the stores don't open for at least 2–3 more hours?! The doom and gloom I feel when I have gleeful dreams of myself just meandering around the grocery store uninterrupted, only to wake up and realize my dreams may never be realized again, is becoming unbearable.

Seriously, even if you disagree with everything I'm saying, I need someone to explain to me the benefits of offering fewer hours of operation during a time in which the economy is in the toilet. This not only means less revenue for stores, but also fewer working hours for employees.

Grocery store Gods, hear my cry!

I'm not trying to spark any idiotic debates. I just want my grocery store back to 24 hours, so I can slither out of bed and shop in peace! I swear, I don't expect much from scientists, experts, or the general public overall. I don't expect rationality from the masses and certainly don't expect people to suddenly start heeding my awesome takes on life before some reputable entity expresses the same sentiments years later.

But, please, for the love of God, give me my grocery stores back!

If this rant annoyed you, that's just another argument for overnight grocery store hours — you'll have an even smaller chance of running into my sarcastic a** while you shop during regular business hours.

How do you feel about the lack of 24-hour grocery stores in 2023?

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