plastic bags

My life has turned into the fastest rollercoaster in the world, to the extent that I sometimes wonder how I am able to keep up with myself. This week has, again been one where I try to balance between stress and STRESS and in this mad rush I bumped into the grocery store. I had fifteen minutes to do my shopping and try not to forget anything, at least not anything important. This then was easier said than done as I had already forgotten my shopping list.

In the queue there was an older lady standing in front of me. I searched through my bag and noticed that I had, yet again, left my shopping bag at home. This tends to happen whenever I do my shopping whenever I can find the time, instead of specially going to do shopping in an organised and sensible manner.  Just perfect – as if I didn’t have enough empty plastic bags in my flat to serve as rubbish bags until the next century.

Thanks to my quiet murmur the lady turned around, opened her bag and pulled out a tiny thing of plastic and held it in front of my face. “This is what I do. I always have a plastic bag in my bag.” I looked at her, slightly puzzled - a look that indicated that a bit more explanation was needed.

She unfolded the tiny thing of plastic and it was, indeed, a plastic bag. She told me that every Sunday she would fold few of them into her handbag. Obviously, as the thing was the size of a half a credit card they didn’t take up too much space but where always there if needed. Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.

When chucking my shopping into new plastic bags I imagined myself sitting in my flat on a Sunday morning, before my first shift at work, folding old plastic bags into nice, flat triangles. And as I rushed out the shop, ran six flights of stairs up to my flat, emptied the bags, ran downstairs and hopped on my bike I decided that maybe, just maybe I should rather start keeping my shopping bag in the front door handle or get a 25^th hour into my day.