Mumsnet during the beginning of the Pandemic - please tell me your stories of the maddest comments you saw

[mumofoneAlonebutokay]

Inspired by chat on another thread - one woman was told not to pop to the shop for milk but to put butter in her coffee instead 😄

I wasn't on mumsnet then but would love to know the maddest comments you saw?

I myself went mad during the pandemic 🙈 and refused to leave the house and judged anybody that did, I'll admit 😬😄 - I wish I'd been calmer

Please share 🥰

Edit - I know how awful the pandemic was for those who lost loved ones, and how serious those losses are - this is just about the unnecessary hysteria and comments stemming from that, not to poke fun at those who lost someone or became ill. 💕

A Mumsnetter getting ripped to shreds because she started a thread moaning about how she wasn't allowed to visit her holiday home, at a time when women were having to give birth alone and elderly people in homes were looking at their families through windows.

Someone being told they should be arrested for Mumsnetting in their back garden 🤣

Someone posted absolutely beside herself that her DH had picked up a bit of rubbish (paper wrapper or something) on a walk and put it in his pocket. He’d done this to reduce litter, and put it in the bin at home. But what had happened was he’d come in, washed his hands, and then put the rubbish in the bin and not washed his hands and had then obviously touched things in the house. She was furious that he’d basically sentenced them all to death, because what if the person who dropped this litter had Covid????

I remember someone predicting their would only be 50 Covid deaths in the UK

I remember people thinking they could catch it through the post and quarantining their mail for 48 hours. Also a guy I know would wipe all of his groceries over with an antibacterial wipe before putting them away.

I also remember one where people got really upset with someone for only buying a cucumber! I can't remember if it was a poster who asked if they were unreasonable to go and buy one as she'd done a grocery shop and they were sold out or if someone had seen someone only buying a cucumber!

There was also one asking if she was unreasonable to have her DC in the car while she drove round to her DM to drop something off. The responses were hysterical, about her having an accident, paramedics having to treat the children etc.

MN was a crazy place for a while!

Tbh, she deserved being ripped into for that 😄

I remember someone isolating their young daughter (8 is in my head) for ten days in her room, including over her birthday. I think she made her a cupcake to eat in her isolation 😵

Oh wow

I remember a video of a teacher shouting at pupils that they still had to go to school as covid isn't airborne or something

Its the authority with which some people would talk that gets me 😄

I remember reading on here about a woman who took her little toddler for a walk and let her play in the sandpit of a local playground, completely alone. Someone saw and reported her and she was approached by police and told to go home. I still think about that and how sad it was.

I was actually going to reference the cucumber one

I'm sure there was a poster who wiped her shopping down with bleach

My friend is an experienced nurse but works in theatre on elective surgery which was all cancelled so volunteered to work on a covid ward. She mentioned on FB that someone got too close to her in the supermarket and one of her FB "friends" went on a rant about how she shouldn't be going to the supermarket and spreading covid and how she should be ashamed of herself! My friend lives alone so how was she supposed to eat if she couldn't go shopping? Also she had 2 showers before leaving hospital so was probably more sterile than the mad friend

I did that...

It was absolute bonkers wasn’t it a family friend made a cuddle shield from an old shower curtain so she could terrify hug her grandchildren

Lockdown with severely disabled children was one of the worst parts of our lives. I'll never forget the "all in the same boat" people. In the end we just did what we needed to do to survive.

The butter (or sometimes people say it was cheese) story is apocryphal/ urban legend. No-one seriously advised putting butter in your coffee (aside from the hard-core low carbers who start their day with bullet coffee but they were on that pre COVID!). The original comment was during a dispute about popping out to the shops and what constituted "essential shopping" Vs a trivial / for fun trip to the shops in the early days of lockdown 1 (the middle ground common sense answer to this is obvious now in hindsight as with so many things but it was quite febrile and confusing back then and you were always at risk of accidentally breaking the rules). One relaxed poster said that they were popping to the corner shop regularly for fresh milk top ups as needed for for hot drinks. One fairly hard line poster said that that was too often/too much shopping and running out of milk for your tea (as opposed to baby formula) wasn't an emergency/essential and you should wait to do a weekly or monthly big shop. Someone else chipped in with surely dairy is an essential food group so therefore milk is an essential item, and the hard-line poster said no, if you have other forms of dairy in the house like cheese, yoghurt or butter you have the essentials for nutrition covered and no need to go to the shop purely to buy milk. There was no (serious) suggestion to put the butter in the tea. Obviously the tea/coffee drinking crowd leapt on this as ridiculously OTT and I think hindsight probably says they were right but it wasn't as ridiculous an argument as people are now making out (unless there was a separate thread/comment I missed!)...

I seem to recall that someone started a post about they were "literally crying and shaking" at the sight of people walking past their front door.

During The Great Flour Shortage there were MNers proudly claiming that using flour to make home made play dough was more important than it being available for people who needed to make bread. I remember being told to eat something really bizarre in place of bread (but frustratingly I can’t remember what)

There was someone who was told that going to the stables to look after her horse wasn’t essential and therefore wasn’t allowed. That the horse needed food, water and grooming wasn’t of interest to them.

It was crazy wasn’t it? I remember losing my shit with then teen dd. I’d been trying for days in vain to get a Tesco delivery slot, staying up till midnight each night. My ECV DB (who is a Dr) was living with us and he wouldn’t let us leave the house (he has an immune disorder) or we’d kill him. (He is also extremely clinically neurotic).

One day I heard the doorbell ring and when I answered I saw a Tesco van pulling away, and a Tesco bag on the doorstep. I picked it up and it contained a solitary hair dye (ordered by dd who evidently had bagged a slot). I swear to god, I didn’t calm down until around April 2023.

Lots of ascertaining that it was definitely the people in B and M and the Range spreading covid rather than waitrose

Ah yes "But it's the RULES" applied with zero logic.

Want to go for a walk in a private field, which led to a small woods, where you never met a single person.... TWICE in one day?

But the rules are ONE outing a day, you're incredibly selfish and putting people at risk of death... You know the people that you never come across, they might get COVID from where you touched a gate.... In the private field that nobody uses...

Brioche..?

Gluten free cake?

I remember people being berated for the following:

Taking their child with SEN for a walk on a deserted beach because they would have to drive to get there

Allowing their Covid-positive child to make fudge

There was also the poster who queried whether she should make her 10-year-old isolate within the house - lots of people seemed to think the child would suffer no ill effects from this (there was talk of ‘creating a wind tunnel’ by opening doors and windows).

Not to mention the reaction to those of us who dared to suggest prolonged school closures might have negative effects…