The shopping centre is a few kilometres from my house. I drove there, I parked my car, I got out, I shut and locked the door. Then I did the whole process in reverse and back because I'd forgotten - again - to bring the shopping bag. Let it not be said that forsaking plastic is a painless business.

The shopping centre carpark on Wednesday morning bore the usual signs of close proximity to a McDonald's. The ubiquitous brownish bags with the golden arches were strewn about, squashed and beaten, some spewing half-eaten contents for birds to pick.

Bits of white paper flapped and flopped. A used nappie sat, bound and sullen, waiting for some poor underpaid shopping centre employee to pick it up. And a big shout-out to Coles and Woolworths for joining the - rapidly expanding - ranks of major corporations with unfortunate "software issues". There's a lot of it going around. The business equivalent of the coronavirus.

But back to Wednesday. I headed for the shopping centre, sidestepping an abandoned, up-ended trolley and a kid on a bike with a smiley face. I smiled back.

I had a list of things to get. Milk, bread, yoghurt, cat food - always cat food - carrots and some fruit. Maybe some salmon, unless I talked myself out of it because it would mean having to actually cook something that night. I have grand plans of doing so in the morning but by the end of the day it's easy to persuade myself I'm being very healthy, rather than just lazy, by eating things raw.

Anyway, that's what was going through my mind for the first few seconds until I was sure I had the shopping list down and I wouldn't forget the milk. Then my mind turned to work and the day ahead.

The air was fresh and the ground wet from a shower at dawn. I reached the pedestrian crossing, stepped out, and the shopping centre glass doors slid open.

And there they were - the men beyond the line I hoped would never be breached. With their toilet paper.

Now I know that as we age we're supposed to develop wisdom, and tolerance, and an ability to look at the world with generous eyes and an open heart.

I know this generous, kindly state - where I should smile or be indifferent to things that in the past would have left me grinding my teeth to a pulp - is supposed to be as much a part of ageing as failing eyesight, greying hair or the age spots my doctor - damn the man - calls barnacles, because he fancies himself as a comedian.

Wisdom, tolerance, generosity, goodwill is supposed to drape over me and waft through me, along with the scent of lavender and mothballs.

But it doesn't come naturally.

A computer or phone update you're forced to do, because it will "make your life easier", but which adds a few confusing bells and whistles you don't want, don't understand and don't know how to get rid of, and invariably shunts you down a software byway until, suddenly and inevitably, you hit an impassable password snarl ... That will strip back the goodwill and tolerance and lay bare the narky grandma within, mothball-scented or no.

Pollie rorts will do it too, or pollies trying to minimise, deny, deflect or defend the rorts they've been caught out on. It's unAustralian to be tolerant when a pollie's caught in the headlights then.

I have zero tolerance for anything to do with systems thrust on us by governments, generally with the word "My" in front of it - MyGov, MyRail - that then fails at a most crucial point. I have negative zero tolerance when the failure is already known and nothing's done about it.

Sydney Airport domestic terminal rail station once had a dodgy Opus card top-up machine that looked like it was working until it didn't, and left you wondering if the government had just dudded your credit card.

"Yeah. We reported it a few weeks ago but ... ," said the man behind the counter, who said my card hadn't been credited $50 and I'd have to do it again on another machine.

"Why don't you put a sign on it to say it's out of order?" I said. He shrugged.

"It's at the far end. Not many people use it," he said. Really.

I stomped off, too tired and desperate to get home to be bothered standing up for consumers everywhere by demanding an "Out of Order" sign. But back to peak stupid.

At 6 on Wednesday morning at my son's cafe a few regulars and staff discussed the world and what was making the news. Coronavirus and toilet paper.

Everyone had a toilet paper story but me, who hadn't been to a shopping centre since the weekend. Everyone was struggling to understand a world that suddenly seemed a lot less sensible than it had seemed when we went to bed the night before, and a lot more stupid. My teeth started to grind.

Someone: "I don't get toilet paper. Why are people freaking about toilet paper rather than food?".

Someone else: "There's a run on food too. I tried to get baked beans the other day and it was a struggle. It's because the two go together. If you're quarantined at home for weeks with only a crate of baked beans to keep you going, you're going to need toilet paper."

The two men who walked out of the shopping centre on Wednesday wheeled trolleys piled with mega-packs of toilet paper, looking determined. No food, of course. Just toilet paper. Enough for ... I'm not sure.

But I don't want to be there when it happens.

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