Richard Watterson and I have a similar problem...

[senoritafish]

I am conflicted whenever I go to the grocery store. I like using the self-checkout and bagging my own groceries, using my own bags that I bring and thereby cutting down on the use of plastic. As a matter of fact, a nearby city (Long Beach, CA) has actually banned plastic shopping bags, and my own city is considering the same measure.

However, the stores seem to want you to use their own reusable bags and no others. If I put any other bag other than the ones with their name on it, I get the same message Richard Watterson does below (from the episode "The End" in The Amazing World of Gumball).

(Click for Richard trying to use the self-checkout...)

There's usually a button that says "I'm using my own bags" but when I press that it usually locks the whole system up, and one of the store people has to come over and enter a code before I can continue.

IT SHOULDN'T MATTER WHERE THE BAG COMES FROM TO PUT YOUR DAMN GROCERIES IN IT!

I suppose I could avoid all this and wait in line fo ra regular checker, but I kind of like doing it myself (less the above headache). Plus I kind of get a kick out of using a Trader Joe's bag at Albertson's. ;p

Comments

[mskauri.livejournal.com]

hehehe Yes, I do the same thing...and for many of the same reasons! Don't like the plastic (and have thought for years that if they'd stop making the damn plastic bags nearly transparent they wouldn't have to limit the loading of said bags to 3 items or less). Don't like the lines--and the RACKS of crap they make you look at while you're waiting for the person in front of you to finish digging coupons out of their purse, write a check and then put their overstuffed wallet into their overstuffed purse and move out of the lane. My grocery bag rotation is presently Trader Joe's, Market of Choice (local market similar to Whole Foods but SOOOO much better!), a pair of hand-made tote bags I got at a Saturday Market and a BIG one I got as a give-away at a conference (I don't mind promoting a real-time captioning company!). I keep 'em all in my car in a big blue IKEA bag. And I get the same little charge out of using bags that are CLEARLY not "from here" at Fred Meyer (Kroeger) and Safeway!

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

Sigh. This went over to Facebook, and of course the funny video got stripped out, so it sounded like I was just being bitchy. A couple of my friends chided me for it being a labor issue, and they not using them because they want to support people's jobs. Which of course, I do, being a good union member myself, but sometimes, for three items, I just feel antisocial, and I'd rather not have to talk to anyone. Except for, of course, telling the machine to shut up.

But of course the real people don't care what bag you're using. ;)