I Swear They Must Get A Commission!

We did our grocery shopping today and, as usual, we bought a lot of stuff. While we were checking out, we had a bagger. I swear that our grocery store baggers get commission on how many of their cheap, tear the second you put more than 3 small thing in them plastic bags. The bagger we had put our gallon milk containers each in a separate bag and then grabbed our apple juice containers that come with built in handles on the top for easy carrying and tried to put them in bags, too. I stopped her and said, "you don't have to put those in bags, they already have handles." You should have seen the look on her face. She looked utterly appalled that I said anything to her about the way she was doing her job. I just smiled and considered saying something about "let's save the environment here," but I didn't. I didn't even say anything to her as I reached passed her for the 6 packs of Pepsi and the case of root beer and just put them in the cart (and without those little orange "I paid for these items" stickers on them. OH NO!!) And, to top it off, she put hot food (I was getting something from the hot buffet for Bug to have for lunch since it was getting late and he was getting hungry (and pretending to chow down on the sales flyer, which was really cute)) right on top of my ice cream! Who the hell trained her? Cold stuff goes with cold and hot with hot! Most occasions I just want to bag myself or have Darling Hubby do it, but now the store has pretty much instituted the "you will have an incompetent bagger program," so they are usually there.

I'm considering going for those reusable canvas shopping bags. It would be so much more eco-friendly, I wouldn't have a ton and a half of plastic bags floating around my house and I probably wouldn't have to worry about the bags tearing while walking to the house from the car leaving my grapefruit rolling down the driveway. Granted, I do use those plastic bags for small garbage pail liners and for emptying the kitty box and things like that so they do get reused a little, but I feel I would be doing my part to save the environment if I stopped the store from handing them out like they were water. I swear, on a $150 shopping trip (minus the things that I prevented her from bagging, I must have had at least 15-20 bags each with like 2 things in them. It says "EZ10" on the bag for a reason!

So, if you have gone the route of putting a stop to piles of plastic shopping bags leaping from behind your toilet or sneaking their way out from under the kitchen sink, let me know what you've used and your recommendations. I'll appreciate it.