Our favorite grocery store, Wegmans, has recently begun selling reusable canvas grocery bags. They’re very roomy and sturdy. We bought one several weeks ago to try out, and when we remember to bring the bag with us it’s great. Except…
Not one single cashier at the store has the slightest clue how to use them. They have grommets on one side so they can be slipped right over the metal arms the plastic bags are on, and the gusset on the bottom allows it to stand open quite nicely. But every time we hand it over the cashier looks at it like they’ve never seen a bag before in their lives. And then when we point out that it can be used to hold groceries they proceed to fill it up to overflowing, shoving everything from cleaning products to frozen food to eggs in it together, and causing it to weigh about 50 pounds.
So we thought maybe we should buy a second one, because we’re merely trying to reduce the number of plastic bags we bring home every week – not totally eliminate them because they’re useful – but we thought maybe the cashiers were feeling pressured to fit all of our groceries in the one bag. So we picked another one up and put it on the belt first, expecting that the cashier would ring it up and then use it.
We walked out of the store with our nice, new, roomy reusable grocery bag folded up and shoved into a plastic bag all by itself.