Tell me the stupidest things that you've encountered during this pandemic

[Mommabear20]

So here's mine:
I look after my niece one day a week and last week it happened to fall on the day our grocery delivery was due, it arrived without my dogs food and we'd run out that morning, so loaded my DD and niece (6 month old and 1 year old) to the supermarket, literally went in, both girls in pushchair so she wasn't running wild, grabbed the dog food and headed to the till, she'd been very good so I grabbed her a individual packet of chocolate buttons as a treat from next to the till, only for the lady behind me to tut and say 'that's not exactly essential shopping is it! Idiots like you are the reason we're in this mess! You should be ashamed of yourself! Then again what do we expect from girls like you that have nothing better to do than keep popping out kids for the benefits!' 😂 I love people's assumptions!

1. Only 1 is actually mine,
2. Both girls we're planned and very much wanted,

And 3. I'm 26 and married 😂 I loved the look on her face when I turned round and informed her 'and I'm pregnant again!' 😂

@trappedsincesundaymorn

My sister's employers ( a small family firm) were named and shamed for keeping their "non-essential production going" and for "not allowing their employees to wfh". This was a firm making body bags at the time with industrial size sewing machines and a work force who voted to not wfh as they didn't want the products there.

There was also the day (in April), I was called out for giving my dad a lift in my car. I was taking him to mum's funeral at the time but apparently "he should have driven himself there", he was 82 years old and grieving but some people just did not care and it upset him deeply. Funnily enough it was those same people who were full of sympathy and condolences when he died in November.

That is fucking disgusting. I'm sorry x

The police who refuse to break up my next door neighbours parties because I 'can't prove how many people are there'. Already braced for the inevitable tonight!!

People in this area who actually believe primary schools will reopen on 18th. Deluded people.

The current bloody dogs on lead thread. Christ. Its batshit

Neighbour sent me a message stating he was calling the police as he saw DP without a mask on. DP was outside emptying the bins at the time.

Its not a stupid thing iv encountered as such but following on from the essential shopping posts I have to share. It was a red hot day in first lockdown, we had the paddling pool out and I really fancied some cold cider so DH and I went to the local shop filled the basket with cider and added a token bottle of milk. Got to the checkout and operator burst out laughing and said you don't need that milk do you you are just trying to make me believe your shopping is essential. Absolutely busted and now go to other shops for my fix

@froggywentacarolling

I've had butter coffee in Tibet and it's delicious. I wouldn't try it with Nescafe and Flora though!

My personal highlight was a thread something like "AIBU to be really enjoying lockdown?" Cue lots of pp bragging about how they've had a perfectly lovely time with their naice little family in their big house in the country with a huge garden, with lots of jabs about how they couldn't possibly understand why other people are struggling, they're all whiny snowflakes with no resilence who are just being melodramatic for attention. Other posters were literally posting stuff like, "I'm a single mother in a one-bedroom flat with a toddler, this is hell" or "My industry has ceased to exist I have no idea how I'm going to pay the bills or what my future will be" and were still being called attention-seeking snowflakes.

I very politely asked if the people wealthy and privileged enough to be unaffected by lockdown could please celebrate their good fortune without attacking those less fortunate. One poster threw an almighty tantrum and posted a string of posts calling me bitter and vindictive.

The posts on here about people only being allowed outside for an hour to exercise even if you lived in the country/had a big garden and were not going to see another person never mind come anywhere near one. No logic at all.

Yes, apparently rural stile are one of the main transmissions sites. What are MNers doing to stiles, licking them?

There was about a 20-page absolute bunfight of a thread because a poster who was struggling with MH problems wanted to go and sit in an empty field with two friends. Much debate about whether the friends should come in one at a time then swap places (while the other waited on the road), or whether the OP should place them in different parts of the field and go between them, or if the OP was killing old people by going into a private field in the first place.

Ahahaha holy shit!

Other half and I went for a (perfectly legal) Bike ride in the first lockdown. Stopped by an (empty) village green to have a drink of our own water. A man came out of his house and shouted that exercise should be "one continuous loop" and that stopping was not permitted.

When the card factory opened again after the November lockdown. It was absolute madness in there. As I walked past I could hear and see a member of staff at the door announcing that it's ok because 'they have a one way system. Please come in and walk this way'. Through the window I could see people almost shoulder to shoulder shuffling along in the same direction. Bless that member of staff, I don't think she realised that the point of one way systems was to keep people apart. It was as if she thought the physical direction alone that people walked around in was something in itself.

Also I've seen a fair few people step out into the road without looking to enable social distancing. It's a really dodgy road and I don't understand why people fear being within 2 metres of someone outdoors for a few seconds yet don't seem as concerned about being hit by a car travelling at 30mph.

My next door neighbour - who hosted huge, packed parties multiple times a week from March to June: "why don't you do the clapping?"

I had a school dinner voucher to use in Tesco the first week of lockdown when schools were closed. Got all food shopping. Checkout worker read comments on voucher which stated voucher was for food for child during lockdown. Checkout worker checked my shopping to make sure I had food - all my shopping was food so pretty evident and checked it was suitable for a school child. Told her to mind her own business as she couldn't suitably comment on what foods were suitable for my child. All food was identical to what schools would normally offer. Weird experience.

work in a pharmacy. 4 months ago a customer came in for cough medicine for a dry cough - given some, told to go home, self isolate, 111, follow the rules as they were at the time etc etc...-

His response - "FFS - don't worry, it's not that covid thing" - he is dead now... it was.

Found out last week. Shocked me to the core.

The stupid thing I encounter pretty much every time I go out is people who are wearing masks (sometimes even wearing them outdoors) but they want to ask or tell someone something... so they approach, pull the mask down and speak.

At the beginning of the first lockdown, I went to the supermarket. My route back takes me past the main landmark in the area. A car came steaming past me, squealing the brakes, parked facing the entrance (which was gated off) and the driver leaned heavily on the horn.

A security guard came out, explained they were shut, and the woman driver shrieked at him, leaned on the horn again, wound up her windows and started playing classical music really REALLY loudly

She sat there for a bit, security guard radioed for back up and 3 police cars arrived. Lots of screaming from the driver, horn blaring, music turned right up. The police were out of their depth and no idea what to do.

People started milling around and staring, filming the chaos. To this day I can't work out why she would need to so desperately go to this particular place. She was handed some paper (I assume a fine?) and she ripped it up and threw it out of the sunroof at the police, still screaming at the top of her lungs. Eventually they bundled the elderly passenger she had with her into a police van, and I left before seeing anything else.

It was bizarre, but hit home about the impact of lockdown on mental health, as that was no ordinary tantrum

Yesterday, an acquaintance of mine text to check in. He told me he’d been sent home from work to isolate the day before as there had been a number of positive cases. He was bored and in the area and was going to pop in....erm, NO

Cheese in coffee

Literally sobbing and shaking upon hearing a mumsnet had gone out to buy a chocolate bar.

I have seen and read all kinds of crazy but one of my favourites was the poster who wanted runners to go out at allocated times.

I was told on MN that DH and I were a idiots and thick because he'd bought me some chocolate when he went to buy some milk. Milk isn't essential apparently and he was spreading the virus by getting chocolate (which is actually in front of the till).

I also remember a post where someone suggested sealing a family member's room shut with duct tape and using a hepa filter to suck out the air if they were positive.

I have four children and I'm regularly looked at like I'm the scum of the earth by taking them shopping.

During the first lockdown my DDs nursery teacher got abused in the super market for panic buying. I wish I was there I wouldn’t have been as nice as her and just ignored them. She is an amazing lady, a foster parent who has now adopted 9 foster children all with special needs, various disabilities and allergies, all nine children abandoned by their biological families or abused by them. The shopping she was buying was a few basics to get her through until her real shop came through online. There are just too many fucking nosy judgemental people out there. Just because something is not essential for 1 person dosnt mean it isn’t for another. My DD has a milk allergy, I buy a tray of soya milk every week, sometimes more, especially when she was still drinking lots of bottles. I’ve had dirty looks. Luckily I always buy from the same place and when there were restrictions they just put them through as separate sales without question, they knew I wasn’t stockpiling as it was my usual weekly shop.

A nice experience was again at the beginning of the first lockdown when me & a little old lady were having a good laugh about the lack of teabags on the shelves. There was one pack of non branded teabags and loads of decaf. As we were lightheadedly arguing the the other should have the last pack some grumpy old bloke came up and snatched them, we both burst out laughing.

All the examples of extreme views - from 'the army should be out on the streets' people to the 'let's do nothing / lift restrictions' types.

The lack of resilience is disturbing.

Government policies on schools.

Oh another thing...

A week or so after lockdown began, my GP advised me to 'shield' as my asthma was and still is unstable (about 6 months prior I became really unwell with my asthma following a chest infection and has remained really bad). Basically the GP changed my diagnosis from mild asthma to severe asthma and I was given stronger treatment. My GP sent a letter/evidence to my manager advising them about my asthma diagnosis and that I should not be at work as the public health advice for those with my condition was to 'shield'. My manager responded to me saying he wasn't accepting this letter as he didn't believe I had asthma first of all and even if I did it's not bad enough. I work for the NHS but I am not clinical neither is my manager. It was shocking he wasn't accepting my GP advice and that he was making his own judgments about my health. He told me that he expected me in work. My GP couldn't do anymore as he had the evidence that I should be shielding. In the end my GP signed me off with anxiety as that was the only way he would accept me to me to be off and he was actually increasing my anxiety to the point I ended up on meds. I was signed off for a while and he had the dates of my absence period but yet he demanded I contact him every morning telling him I wouldn't be at work. In the end, my GP sent him a personalised note telling him his actions were excessive and that they would support me in a tribunal case as he was not accepting shielding advice and was excessive in their treatment of me whilst sick. He then came back to me once he received my note telling me I shouldn't be speaking to my GP about him and that I had no need to discuss my anxiety with them.

Stupid is probably not the right term to use in this example, but he really was a bully during this time.

I know someone who lived in deprived areas in Africa for a few years. Ebola was a concern there so Covid 19 isn't anything for us to be worried about, apparently... I wasn't aware we were playing disease top trumps!

Lots and lots, including masks as chin decorations, a lady poking me in the chest and telling me I was breaking the law by not having a table for them to sit at left during eotho, when they hadn't booked.
But one that sticks in my mind is a post on here about how care workers are being "allowed" to kill elderly relatives with Covid while they're not allowed to visit their families in care homes. Like we're going round deliberately infecting people and it's the care workers who've put a ban on visits, rather than wearing PPE, being as safe as possible in our own lives to limit exposure, doing everything possible to protect their loved ones and like we made up the rules about visiting. I found it sad that someone thinks so poorly of people who care for their elderly relatives.