Bags

1. Only One Bag

I saw a man at the grocery store meticulously pack one paper bag with the groceries he had just bought. One by one, he put his things into it -- clearly, it seemed, so he wouldn't need a second one.

When he was done, he looked at the second bag that he had brought with him and puzzled briefly what to do. He refolded it carefully and began to put it inside the first, but then (glancing briefly at the checkout clerk) he put it onto the pile of unused bags and turned and left the store.

2. Forgotten Bags

As I stood and watched this man, I moaned to myself at having forgotten to bring my old bags with me -- that pile of brown paper stacked neatly in the pantry waiting to be called again for grocery duty.

It seems I can never remember to bring a bag along no matter what I do.

3. Empty Bags

Trudy is a rememberer. When she drove off to the grocery store, she remembered to take two or three bags from that pile in the pantry.

She wrote her check out with glee, happy at having brought the bags that now sat at the end of the counter waiting for the bagger. I can just imagine her happiness that the pile of paper in the pantry was three bags smaller.

But as she looked up from her checkbook, a vision of horror struck her eyes: the bagger had ignored her bags and packed instead all her groceries into white plastic bags, probably no more than five items to each. She was tired. She was hungry. And this clueless bagger had stolen her day's one moment of satisfaction.

As she pointed at the cart laden with a dozen or more mostly empty plastic bags and at her still-empty paper bags lying folded beneath the bagger's hands waiting for the next batch, she said in a defeated voice, We try so hard to recycle.

The bagger probably had no idea what she was talking about.

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