It has always bothered me that grocery checkers/baggers don’t even seem to try to minimize the number of bags that they use.
I can almost understand the challenge in the day of flimsy plastic bags that only hold a couple of boxes of cereal or some apples and carrots. But the problem was there even before we had the opportunity to choose “Paper or Plastic”.
Today I see it when I [actually remember to] bring my own reusable bags to the store. Checkers today just toss items in the bags randomly and inefficiently. I find myself repacking the bags after I put them
Stephen Covey, in the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, introduced the concept of handling the Big Rocks before the Little Rocks. He was talking about life, not packing groceries, but the concept still applies. Start each bag with a big item, then begin filling the bag will smaller items. You’ll get a lot more groceries in a bag that way, and with a lot less trouble.
A lot of groceries come in rectangular boxes. Is it too much to ask that several similarly-sized boxes be put in a bag neatly side by side? Then the soft or unusually shaped items can go around the edges. When using plastic bags, this also helps keep the corners from breaking through the bag.
Packing groceries in a bag is a puzzle, folks, and not a particularly difficult one. You can do it! I know you can!
