Think back to a time we weren’t overwhelmed with news about the novel coronavirus.

Yeah, I can’t either.

You may be surprised to re-learn that the threat was off the public radar until early January. The first reported death in China, where the pandemic started, was Jan. 11.

I’m no longer shaking my head in sympathy for the Chinese, then the Iranians, then the Japanese and the Italians. The virus is upon here in Colorado and Aurora.

In typical American style, we spring into action — by hoarding, toilet paper.

Toilet paper?

Already, the wave of psychological TV, radio and newspaper deep dives into the phenomenon have swept across the nation faster than the virus itself.

Really? Toilet paper?

Not seeing the need to get on a roll with the rest of my American brethren, I feel left out.

As it turns out, I’m one of those people who shouldn’t go on a cruise or hang with my aging pals in public, according to some federal health officials some of the time. I’m not infirm. I’m just old. Don’t smirk. It could happen to you.

So I’m looking for things to horde. If I have to stay home and argue with my wife for a month or so, what can I not live without?

Whiskey, comes first to mind. Toilet paper? Please. I work for a newspaper. As many readers have pointed out over the years, bathroom duty for people, dogs, cats and birds are my writing’s only ROI.

No. It’s whiskey. Irish. And if I might cough my way off of the planet, it’s going to be the good $20 a bottle stuff.

And waxed paper. I’ve had a love affair with waxed paper since I was a child and they made lunch bags out of it, long before there were plastic sandwich bags, which ruined everything. Told you I was old. You can wrap presents with the cheap dollar-store kind. That could be important since we’ll probably be handing out food as gifts as the Virus Apocalypse grinds on and we work feverishly to preserve civilization.

Peanut M&Ms. Sure, I’m a food snob. My go-to chocolate is Callebaut. But face it, if I have to watch Roseanne reruns for weeks to keep from losing my mind, M&Ms are the gold standard. They have all the food groups: sweet, salty and crunchy. The 200-pound bag I just ordered will last far beyond my natural or hastened death.

Coffee. I don’t care if the toilet paper runs out and we have to cut up my wife’s coveted high-thread-count Arkansas-cotton sheets she snagged from the clearance shelf at Big Lots, running out of coffee would be calamitous.

If I’m going to suffer in seclusion, I want to be fully charged when it happens. This is going to set me back financially because I’m a bigger coffee snob than a chocolate snob. If it isn’t roasted to ashes by Italian coffee gnomes, I won’t touch it. It’s not outside the realm of things that could happen that I would stealthily loot my neighborhood Starbucks out of desperation during Week 14 if my supplies run out.

Cascade Ultra-Stupid-And-Expensive dishwasher pellets, because my wife is a sucker for that kind of stuff and it could save our marriage.

I think that’s it. I know that stockpiling food is a lost hope because we have a full-size freezer so full it will fit nothing else, a room-sized pantry loaded to the gills and a fridge that has stuff falling out when you open it. And despite that, the nightly refrain is, “where are we going to dinner? We have nothing to eat.” It’s going to be a long summer.

Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com