Tonight I did my monthly grocery shopping. I like to shop at night when the store is quiet and I can leisurely stroll my cart down the center of the aisles without regard to possible road blockage. It’s a routine I follow which begins by the strategic parking of the car next to/near a cart return so I don’t have to hike half a mile across the megastore parking lot once I’ve emptied it. I always use the entrance near the produce which peruse before skirting the outside of the store for the meat department, dairy, and frozen foods before weaving methodically through the non-perishables.

I live in a security locked apartment building which makes grocery shopping a pain. Every load of groceries requires the same steps unload from the car, walk to the main entry, set groceries on porch, pull keys from pocket, hold door with foot while picking up groceries, walk to my door, set groceries down in hallway, pull keys from pocket, unlock door, pick up groceries, move them inside. It’s mundane and I don’t like it. Which is why I try to get as much of my grocery getting completed in a single shop.

Which brings me back to the grocery store routine. After my peaceful perusal of the final aisle (the bread aisle) I make my way to the check out counters. There we become faced with the age old question: “Paper or Plastic?” Considering my disdain for multiple trips to the car for groceries my “Bag of Choice” as it were is always plastic.

Plastic, contrary to what the cotton industry would like you to think really “is the fabric of our lives” er... well I guess you could say “the polymer of our lives”. Last summer I purchased a window unit air conditioner and needed a gasket to seal off the top of the window I used plastic grocery bags. When I’m running late for work but still need to bring my lunch what do I throw it in? A plastic grocery bag. Need an overnight bag in a jiffy, well just help yourself to a plastic grocery bag. Of course you can also use it for transporting groceries, as was tonight’s purpose.

I heart Wal-Mart. Not due to the murder of the “Mom and Pop” stores. Or Kathy Lee Gifford’s Asian Slave Labor Winter Knit Collection. Rather, our Wal-Mart recently obtained the almighty Self-Checkout. I stuff my plastic grocery bags to overflowing before lovingly placing the bloated containers back in the cart for a quick romp to the car. I don’t believe in wasted space. I would rather have semi-squashed bread resulting in questionably stout sandwiches than having to carry one more bag to the car. But I digress.

My check out girl today was in her teens. Quite studious looking with fingers who flew across the produce codes and knew enough to count the Yoplait yogurt and scan them once rather than each individual barcode. I suppose I was so busy chatting with her that I paid very little attention to my dwarfish bag boy. It was only when I reached my car and started to divest the cart of it’s groceries that I noticed with the exception of multiples of the same item, each grocery had it’s individual plastic bag. I trudged all 22 of my grocery bags into the apartment and set them on the middle of my living room floor. My cat, instantly curious wandered through them looking like a little black lion plodding through his plastic savannah.

What is the world coming to! Why doesn’t Woodman’s have Self-Checkout?