Plastic bags. I'm sure they are a great benefit to humanity, but I could quite cheerfully strangle the little so and so who invented them. They are truely inventions of the devil. I am sure that a level of Hell is reserved for people who are tasked with the job of opening one of them. They haunt my every waking hour (well almost) - in the supermarket, the cashier is whisking through one item after another, and they're all crashing into one another like the insane grocery pileup equivalent of a motorway crash. Meanwhile you're still struggling to open the plastic bag to put the purchases in. No matter which approach I use... nothing works. The relaxed 'hey.. I'm a guy who shops in supermarkets all the time to pick up the cool chicks' flick of trying to open one leaves it flapping around my face like a wounded albatross trying to pull my glasses off. Or the practised 'I do this all the time.. I am the supermarket King' rustle of thumb and forefinger together. This simply results in the plastic bag equivalent of carpet burns.
Instead I'll try the 'I'm so busy I don't even know I'm opening one' technique of licking thumb and forefinger. This simply results in my fingers sliding around like a chimpanzee on iceskates for the first time. Meanwhile the pileup continues, only by now it's stopped looking like a motorway crash and is looking like some sort post modern artwork that should be on show in the Tate. Still I continue, by trying to prise the sides apart. If Moses could do it with the Red bloody Sea surely I can do it with a poxy plastic bag!
In the midst of all this frustration I notice everything has gone quiet around me.. I look up from my frustration to see Sharon looking pityingly at me. She says 'Would you like some help packing, Sir?' And the 'Sir' is always said after a pause of a few seconds, which allows me to pop into the gap 'you poor moron of a ...'. "No, I don't need help bloody packing! Packing is easy - you just shove stuff in the bags. It's opening the bloody bags I bloody need help with - isn't it obvious?" Only of course I don't actually *say* that. After all, I'm a MAN for gods sake. I can drive a car, I can put up shelves, I can boil water... men have landed on the moon. If they can land on the moon, I'm damn sure I can open. a. bloody. plastic. bag!
Oh yes.. and the rubberneckers. Back to my road crash analogy - they slow down as they walk past, looking firstly in amazement at the pile of boxes, tins and packets teetering... then their eyes drop to the pile of discarded plastic bags... then up again. 'Ah' they think. 'Ah. It's a man versus plastic bag bout. The result is foregone. Nothing to watch here.' They carry on without so much as a glance back over their shoulder. They know who the victor will be, and believe me, it's not going to be me.
Eventually Sharon takes pity on me, and pulls a plastic bag off the roll and with a practised flicking of two fingers has it open for me. I mumble my thanks, and pack my goods up, hoping against hope I don't need her to assist me with a second bag. Fortunately, in this case, I don't. I pay my money and, picking up my humiliating load, make for the car. Just outside the door of the supermarket, the handle breaks, the sides split and the bottom falls out, depositing my groceries in a puddle. I look around, only to see the security guy looking at me (I'll bet HE can open plastic bags, the bastard). After a moment he says 'I'd get two bags next time if I were you Sir.'
There's that pause again. Bastards must go on a training course I reckon. How to humiliate the poor punters who use the supermarket while appearing to be polite and helpful. I pick up the few items that I can manage and make a dash for the car in the rain (since it's quite obviously going to be raining) and make my escape. I mentally tick the shop off my list as another one I can't return to for at least a month until they've forgotten the whole thing.
Nasty things, plastic bags. Yes, the obvious answer is that I should bring my own and use those. Natural, logical sensible point to make, and I hate you already for even suggesting it. I'll tell you why. I already *own* dozens of these things. A bag for life. Another bag for life. A third bag for life - I tell you, in my kitchen I have enough bags for life to satisfy the reincarnation requirements of a medium sized country. I buy these things, put my shopping into them, take them home and then, I'll admit it, I forget them. They sit on the side, out of harms reach, then hide as I'm about to go shopping. Can't find the little beggers anywhere. As soon as I've left the house they pop back out of hiding waiting to taunt me. So not only do I have the humiliation of plastic bags in the first place, I have the added humiliation that I know it's all entirely my own fault. Thanks for reminding me, as if I needed it!
Finally, don't get me started on the black bin liners, with their rabbit ears that can only have been modelled on a deformed rabbit, or the yellow ties that unravel in your hand, or the hook and loop push through the hole affairs. What are they all about, that's what I want to know. Then there's the thin ones which are thinner then a condom and split with eyecontact. No, don't get me on black bin liners, it's not a pretty sight.
