don't it make my blue bags green

i called in sick to work today, so i'm blogging in hopes of distracting myself from the ills of being cooped up in a house filled with the sounds of the jackhammering going on across the street. you'd think i live in the middle of new york city rather than in the nashville 'burbs.

anyway, i want to brag about a particular purchase of mine yesterday: reusable kroger bags.

yes, i know i look so nerdy carrying them, but i feel so responsible. they were super cheap -- 99 cents for the regular ones and like $2.99 for the special insulated ones.

i've always, always, always hated the plastic bags. environmental unfriendliness aside, it takes like five times as many plastic bags than paper bags to carry your groceries. after two trips to the grocery store, you find your kitchen is drowning in a sea of plastic bags. (although i have to give some of the stores credit for placing recycling bins for the bags at their doors, though i think i'm one of five people who uses the bins for recycling rather than trash.) and they break. they always break. they break because 12-year-old bagger boy has not figured out the laws of physics yet.

i do like the paper bags because you can fit so much stuff into them. and the ones from the organic stores that come with handles rock my face off. i always reuse the paper bags to stuff my used newspapers into for transport to the recycling station. but, i still somehow end up with more paper bags than i need for my newspapers. plus it annoys me that i have to ask the bagger to use them. i always forget to do this until he/she has bagged half of my purchase in the plastic bags.* what happened to the days of "paper or plastic?"

*it doesn't take them long because they don't put a whole lot of thought into it. i always find my flank steak cut in the same bag as my toilet bowl cleaner. yummy.

anyway, so i've got the reusable bags now, which i plan to also use to transport my newspapers for recycling. i'll spare you the preaching about how i'm being so good to the environment by saving it the energy/pollution it takes to produce and recycle grocery bags and just leave you with one thought that so pleases my thrifty-minded self: they (are supposed to) give you 4 cents back on your grocery bill for each reusable bag you bring use with your grocery order. So, by my calculations, I just have to use them on 50 shopping trips to get my money's worth ... hmmm.

Oh, and the reusable bags don't make the baggers any smarter. The bagger yesterday asked me if the insulated bag was for the refridgerated and frozen items. No, there for me to smack you over the head with. And this time I found my flank steak smushed between two boxes of cereal. Thanks, guys.