On Mon, 06 Apr 2015 16:41:10 -0500, wrote:

I went to a Dollar Store and bought the following:

1 box of crackers
2 candy bars
1 quart of motor oil
1 pack of 4 AA batteries
1 one liter bottle of soda
1 pack of cold cuts
2 average cans of canned soup
1 package of beef jerky
1 small plastic jar of peanut butter
1 small glass jar of pickles
1 four pack of toilet paper

I easily walked up to the counter with all of this in my hands, except
the soda which was under my arm.

I checked out, paid under $20 for this stuff.
I ended up with SEVEN of those crappy plastic store bags.

It was packed this way.

1 bag just for the motor oil
2 bags (doubled) for the bottle of soda
1 bag for the toilet paper
1 bag just for the cold cuts
1 bag for only the pickles
1 bag for everything else

I asked the clerk why she could not put it all in one bag.
She said oil cant be put with food, soda needs a double bag because of
it's weight, glass jars cant be put with other stuff, anything from the
cooler (cold cuts) must be bagged separately, and the toilet paper was
too big to put in the same bag as other stuff.

I could see the clerk was ****ed, as I emptied all the bags on the
counter.

I don't think you should have done that in front of the clerk. For one
thing you hold up the line. And the clerk's job is unsatisfying and
low paid enough that he doesn't need the implied insult. Complain to
the management instead, as you did.

I put everything in one bag, except the toilet paper and the
soda. I told her that the soda is easier to carry without a bag, and the
toilet paper already HAS a bag since it's sealed in plastic.

I left the store ONE bag, plus the toilet paper and soda un-bagged.
Before leaving, I handed her the unneeded six bags and told her to reuse
them. Instead, she tossed them in the garbage.

Then we wonder why we create so much garbage..... and why we're told we
must recycle.

I'm not surprised to hear that these are the rules, since the
supermarkets do the same thing.

They all changed at roughly the same time. They used to pack the bags
so that they weighed about the same. Now they will put two 48-ounce
bottles of something in the same bag, while putting paper napkins in
another bag.

Other than separating frozen food from hot food, or maybe keeping froen
food with milk and other cold food, I wish they would go back to the old
rules. I wish they woudlnt' use a separate bag for the newspaper, and
sometimes I say that, but I don't like to interrupt their routine, even
in a way that might seem to be making their life easier (like putting
two things in one bag), when changing their routine almost surely makes
their life harder. It's one more thing they have to do.

For a while I was saving the plastic bags and bringing them back to the
container they provide, but I've switched to recylcling paper. And
recently I added all those illegal plastic advertising signs I take
down, when I learned they're recyclable. And I'm considering adding
plastic bottles, though I use very few of those not counting milk
Actually recycling is a big pain in the neck, even when it's curbside,
but it's gotten hard for me to through the newsppare in with the
garbage.

I was really ****ed that she tossed those extra bags in the garbage, so
when I got home, I phoned the company and complained about their clerk
being wasteful. They said they require all the things she said, such as
the oil not being placed in a bag of food and cold cuts separated, etc.
I told them I DO NOT appreciate having to make 3 or more trips from my
car to my house, when I get home, particularly when it's winter (which
it was)......

Why 3 trips? The one big advantage of plastic bags is that once you
your hand in the handles of a bunch of them, you can carry 5 or 10 at
once, as long as the total weight is not more than two arms can carry.