Tuesday Musing: Success!

The Morning Glory Muffins were described by one of our Attorneys as "the best you've ever done." I wouldn't change a thing about the recipe and agree with the assertion that they taste better on the second day after the flavors have had a chance to develop. I've had four excellent results in a row and am terrified of the bitter charcoal briquettes that I'm sure to make next week.


Moving right along, today's musing was inspired by a friend of mine mentioning that tomorrow is Earth Day, a fact of which I was completely unaware because it was somehow drowned by all the greenwashing going on recently.

I hate grocery store bagging practices. I've used green bags since they were first widely available and socially acceptable. This is most likely due to how grocery store bag boys put one or two items in a plastic bag and then, annoyingly, tie the handles into a knot. First, are they on a commission that's tied to the number of plastic bags they use? At the end of any given pre-green bag month I would have literally hundreds of plastic bags that needed to be recycled. Second, why the hell do they tie them in a knot? It makes them unwieldy to carry and, because I have the patience of a goldfish, once I get home assures that they will be ripped open to get to its contents (which is invariably a single can of tuna or a lone kiwi). Not only do they tie them, they double knot them like a four year old's high tops. Do they do this because they think that I drive so poorly that the bag's contents will spill out when I take a corner at 120mph on two wheels? Do they think someone is pickpocketing from grocery bags and this is a theft deterent?

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to my love of green bags, which incidentally are on sale tomorrow at Publix for five for four dollars (or, stated less wordy, buy four at regular price, get one free). I am a big fan of green bags. Generally this is because I am a firm believer that if you can't carry it in your hands, you don't need it. I have refined this belief into a system. I carry two green bags, one stuffed inside the other one. If I only need a few things I will fill the first one and have the second in reserve, like a Navy SEAL's backup parachute, ready to be deployed in the event of a sale on chicken breasts or cranberry juice. However, invariably during checkout the bag boy (or more likely bag pensioner) will seperate the two bags and evenly divide my purchases between the two bags. I do not understand this practice. If I can fit everything into one bag, while wandering haphazardly through the store, likely stacking two liter bottles on top of bread and eggs, why can't he fit everything into one bag when he has the luxury of having everything strewn about the bagging area? Is it hardwired into the bagger's mind to put purchases in as many bags as humanly possible? So my point is that you should do your bagger a favor and go out and purchase 15 or 20 green bags while they're on sale tomorrow, that way he can put every single item you purchase in a different bag. He'll be happy and you won't have to recyle a 55 gallon's drum worth of plastic bags every month.