Bag It

Saturday afternoon, I bought some stuff for my house at Kmart – the retail selections in Gillette are Kmart and Walmart. I chose Kmart that day because I felt a moral obligation to support the store that gives pregnant women preferential parking. When I got home, I realized the sales clerk packed my reusable shopping bag inside a plastic bag.

Apparently she didn't know what to do with it. Maybe I should have explained.

Earlier that day, at the checkout at Smith's Food and Drug, I presented the bagger with a reusable bag and told her to fill it up, then use plastic. (For cleaning up after my dog.) I walked out of the store lop-sided because the reusable bag was stuffed to the brim and the plastic bag had one or two light items.

I guess I'm going to have to become one of “those” types of women – I called them “Coupon Mothers” when I worked at Smith's as a teen, you know, the women who sadly become glorified slaves to their husbands and children and get high from bossing around the few people in their world who are lower than them – and micromanage the bagging of items. Ugh. I dread being that way. But I don't want 10 million plastic bags – especially when I have a great selection of reusable bags that include Whole Foods, Powell's City of Books, a bag from an Asian-American conference in Hawaii about 10 years ago (graciously given to me by Jo-Ann Wong when I was in college and complaining about not having a book bag) and lots of Trader Joe's bags.

I remember when I lived in Utah County, the clerk at Target always argued with me about putting my stuff in reusable bags. This was back in 2005 and not many people, especially in Orem, UT, were using reusable bags. She hemmed and hawed because loading a reusable bag is inconvenient in comparison to plastic bags.

Why I couldn't be a normal person and gladly accept my stuff in 10 million plastic bags, she whined. For me, reusable bags are practical. I simply don't want 10 million plastic bags. I'm single. And back in those days, I didn't even have a dog to clean up after. Whatever happened to, “The customer is always right?” (Now I'm definitely sounding like a Coupon Mother.)

“In MY house, we use plastic bags to line garbage bags,” she said.

“Well, I don't have 6 children and 15 small garbages that constantly fill up with trash. There are 6 billion people on this planet and not everyone is like you!” is what I wanted to reply.

Instead I said, “Oh.”