Plastic ... or ... Not

Is there a philosophy of plastic bags?  Their use?  The nature of their being?  What one can know about plastic bags?  The ethics of plastic bagging?  I would not have thought so, but there is a convenience store and supermarket nearby that makes me wonder.

The convenience store, like all convenience stores, sells junk food at exorbitant prices. Yet this doesn’t stop me from going to the store every day to purchase a couple bottles of pepsi, some chips, and an ice cream or two.   The first time I ever bought something in this store that’s what I purchased.  And this is what happens:

I place my items down at the register, and the male clerk rings up each item, placing each one right back down on the counter.   I swipe my credit card, and he gives me a receipt.  

Then we stare at one another.  Waiting.

I refuse to say the obvious.  He must take the first step.  We wait.  We stare.  The line builds.  Customers are getting grumpy.  Finally, he says

Clerk: What?

Me: Bag?

Clerk: Huh?

Me I want a bag.

Clerk: A bag?

Me:  Yeah.  I want a bag.  One like those over there.  See the huge roll of plastic bags next to you?  I want one of them.  One will be sufficient.  I don’t need two.  Just because I managed to carry them all the way to the register in my hands and arms doesn’t mean I want to carry them all the way to my car in my hands and arms.  So I need a bag.  Unless, of course, you want to wait while I carry them one item at a time to my car.  

So, I get my bag.

At first I thought this was one clerk’s idiosyncratic behavior, but over time I’ve come to realize all the clerks do the same thing.  No one wants to part with a plastic bag.  There has been little but some progress over the years.  We no longer stare at one another waiting till one breaks.  Now every time I lay down multiple items at the register the clerk asks, 

Clerk:  “Want a bag?”  

Me: Yes.  Yes I do.  How thoughtful of you.  Thank you.

It’s a ritual, and neither he nor I will give in.  It’s the hesitation, the willed desire not to part with a plastic bag that has me flummoxed.  It’s as if he’s parting with a dear friend and each moment postponed is another moment together.  

I admit to getting a little mean about it.  Two days ago he stood waiting bag in hand as I approached the register, and with a mischievous twinkle in my eye, I said, “No Thanks.”  Gotta keep them on their toes.  And don’t break the ritual.

I’ve been thinking of reasons why this would be. Is this in his contract?  Do convenience store clerks have contracts?  If so, then perhaps his agent has had perks written into his contract like a professional football player has perks written into his.  If a professional football player can get an extra million for scoring X number of touchdowns in a game or Y number in a year, then perhaps a convenience store clerk can get a bonus for each time … oh, I don’t know, let’s say … each time he gives away less than 5 bags in a 30-day period.  

Now the female clerk is nothing like the male clerks.  She gets it.  Maybe she doesn’t have a contract, or maybe she does but has no perks written in to it.  I don’t know.  I only know that whenever she is working the register and I place down 15 items, she doesn’t have to even think about it.  She just scans the items and places them in a plastic bag.  Imagine that!  Intuitively she looks at all the junk on the counter and says to herself, “This man needs a bag!”  No asking if I want one.  She knows I need one. It’s the civil thing to do.  She should be manager.

My experience at supermarkets is different.  Supermarket clerks are eager to bag. Sometimes so eager that proportion becomes a problem.   Either the clerk places each item is in a separate bag, or one bag is so stuffed to full that it is double-bagged, even triple-bagged, which begs the question . . . 

And supermarkets have an odd custom when it comes to prepared foods.  By prepared food I mean cooked on site in their own kitchens.  Clerks insist on bagging hot prepared food separately.   Now I can understand keeping warm food away from ice cream, but a can of corn, a cucumber?  

This makes no sense to me.  How am I going to carry this bag separate from all my other bags in such a way that the hot never touches the not hot?  And if I should be so lucky as to do so, what about my car — I neglected to buy one with a separate hot-food compartment.  So after all the effort of keeping not-hot foods away from hot foods, I throw all the bags in the trunk, where the hot chicken touches and forever corrupts a cucumber.  Plastic bags aren’t thermoses.

They do the same thing with canned cat food.  What’s with that?  Am I weird?  Am I the only person who doesn’t care if canned cat food is packed in the same bag as human food?  What do you think you are protecting the human food from?  The cat food is secure and snug inside cans.

By the way, I have like 50,000 plastic bags at home, all waiting for a rainy day to be used.  I use them as trash bags in my car.  I also use them to … to … to?  Some are so old they may be collectors’ items.  The store names on the bag no longer exist.

And, no, I don’t save aluminum cans . . . yet.