What a waste...

Tonight, I went to Target, where I purchased a total of four items.  Razor blade refill cartridges, body wash, granola bars, and ibuprofen.  When I got to the checkout line, the employee at the register was frantically calling for other employees on her walkie-talkie -- apparently having more than two people standing in line for a register at the Gravois Bluffs Target is a DEFCON 1 emergency.

Clearly, this was not your run-of-the-mill employee.  She was a company woman, following corporate guidelines to the letter so customers could be moved through the checkout process quickly.

The woman in front of me had probably about 20 items, mostly small.  Among these items was a gallon of milk.  As the company woman began bagging this customer's purchases, she asked, "do you need a bag for your milk?"

Let me stop right here for just a minute.  When you buy a gallon of milk, it comes in a plastic jug.  A plastic jug with a built-in handle.  The handle is integrated into the container design so a bag is not necessary.

So, what did this customer say when the company woman, doing her job per the company guidelines, asked if she would like a bag for the milk?

I think you already knew that she said yes.  If she hadn't asked for her milk to be put in a plastic bag, I wouldn't be bitching about it on my blog.  You know how this works.

What a waste.  Seriously.  And to make matters worse, the lady's 20 items ended up in no fewer than six bags.  Six bags for a 75 yard walk to her car, which she would probably drive to her home, probably on a cul-de-sac, where she would then carry those six bags 20 feet to her kitchen.  It's just not a situation that requires that many bags. 

Soon enough, the customer and her bagged milk were on their way to the parking lot, and it was my turn to be rung up by the company woman.  As she was scanning my items, she put the razor blade refills, the body wash, and the ibuprofen in one bag and started to put the granola bars in a bag by themselves.

"Why are you putting those in a different bag?" I asked company woman.

"I can't put chemicals and food in the same bag," she responded, while dropping my granola bars in the second bag.

"I don't want those in a bag," I said of the granola bars.  "Just hand them to me, please."

She did, and as she handed me my receipt, I put the granola in the same bag as the "chemicals."  I think she winced a little bit. 

This rule makes absolutely no sense.  I mean, I can understand if there is produce or raw meat involved, and you're not putting them in the same bag as a bottle of ammonia.  But come on, granola bars?  I've had a couple of these granola bars already, and let me tell you, they barely pass as food.  In fact, the flavor might be improved by some sort of household chemical contaminant.  But honestly, the bars are individually wrapped in a nearly impermeable silver plastic wrapper, and those are stored in a sealed cardboard box.  Nobody is going to die if my body wash, which is also in a ridiculously secure container, happens to spill onto the cardboard.

Why does this make me so angry?  Plastic bags don't really go away.  They fester in landfills for eons.  I mean, sure, some of us are concerned enough about the planet to recycle ours, but the percentage of people who actually do that is very, very small. 

And nobody needs a bag for their milk.  Nobody.  I don't care if you're the freaking pope.  You don't need a bag for your milk.  It's already got a handle. 

Imagine how many bags would be kept out of landfills if big stores like Target started using common sense when bagging.  Seriously.  It's a lot.  Or if they started charging for bags.  They already offer reusable bags for a nominal fee, but I've never seen anyone use them. 

So, gentle readers (if you exist), the next time you buy a gallon of milk, skip the bag.  Please.  Do it for the planet.

Disconnecting

I've been doing a lot of disconnecting over the last week.

A week ago today, I called AT&T and canceled my landline. When the lady asked my reason for canceling, I told her that the only people who ever called me were AT&T salespersons who were trying to sell me U-Verse.

The irony was not lost on the friendly AT&T rep who apologized and proceeded to schedule a time for someone to come over and disconnect the phone. I neglected to tell her that I was also receiving calls from other people on that line -- primarily telemarketers (despite my presence on both the state and nationa; do-not-call registries) and bill collectors seeking to contact people who had previously had that phone number. And occasionally my mother would call that number, too.

Then today, I deleted my MySpace account. MySpace is no longer relevant -- at least not for me. None of my friends use it anymore. Three years ago, it was a hopping place. For the last six months, though, every time I would log in, it felt like I was walking into a ghost town. None of my friends had logged in for weeks or even months. Nobody posted anything new. Plus, I never did care too much for the MySpace layout and the ridiculous number of "themes" that could be downloaded. Those things were really buggy and usually only "worked" in Internet Explorer, which is a browser I never use.

Since I'm on such a roll, what shall I cancel next?