"Your bag is wet!"

I try to be ECO-friendly whenever I can. The ban on plastic bag use in California looming over us in the near future has motivated me to try and take canvas shopping bags  into the market or stores if possible. Might as well start training myself to make this the standard.

You have to take your own bags to SAMS club or Costco because they just lay everything into the cart and you've got to unload it item by item anyway. Boxes there are filled to over capacity and impossible to lift our of the cart so I just put the box on top and load it up at the car.

So I find myself in front of SPROUTS and happen to have their canvas bag along with me and decide to run in and buy a few things. At the checkout, I happily give the bagger my tote and wait to pay up. She looks at me with a disgusted look and says, "Your bag is wet!". Well , it was dry when I brought it into the store and dry when I handed it to her. Then, I spot the meat pack and said the unthinkable, "Maybe the meat juice leaked on it a little". To this, she shrieks and rants, saying, "Oh my God! It's MEAT juice?!!! I'm a vegan!  I'm not touching it!" 

Well, dear girl, you  have already touched it. Unlikely that your fingers will melt off and they can be repaired with a little hand sanitizer or thorough washing. You'd think she was asked to pack up nuclear waste. If being a Vegan prohibits you from bagging meat product, you need a career change.

The checker apologizes for her and grabs a plastic bag for my remaining groceries which is exactly what I was tying to avoid. I packed the meat up myself making darn sure there was no sloughed off digits or tissue in my canvas sack.  Bag Girl tells me again how disgusting my tote is to be wet. This was a proud day for me because on the tip of my tongue, I had quite a few  barbed retorts to fire at her, but left her with, " I've got to hurry home so I can squeeze the meat juice out of this bag for my gravy. Thanks for pointing it out to me."   Waste not, want not.

By the way, it wasn't even meat juice. It was wet lettuce.