HERB BENHAM: Paper or plastic? Oh, plastic -- and lots of it
| Thursday, Jul 29 2010 05:00 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Jul 29 2010 05:00 PM
What is it about getting older and collecting bags?
The other day, I was wearing a pair of shorts. They had two pockets in front, like most shorts do. I didn't think I had anything in the pockets, but I was mistaken.
"It looks like you have a couple of bags in your pockets," a friend said.
He was right. I did have two bags, flaring out on either side. These were the plastic bags in which the newspaper comes wrapped. The bags were long, tubular and had a slightly greenish tint to them.
Newspaper bags come in handy when walking the dogs. If, for some reason, I have forgotten to stuff my pockets with bags, it's hard to pretend those dogs aren't my dogs and they didn't do what I just saw them do.
If I am bagless, I find myself riddled with shame because I have looked down upon those sorts of people in prior visits to the park. I put "those sorts of people" in the same camp as the people who fling empty Starbucks cups from car windows on the freeway.
It's possible that in order to protect myself from that kind of criticism, I have not just become a collector but an over-collector of bags. I have a keen interest in bags that extend beyond the newspaper variety. I save the plastic grocery bags that people frown on because they can bring down a flock of pelicans from 21,000 feet on an otherwise uneventful flight.
My favorite grocery bags are the ones from Fresh & Easy. They are roomy, sturdy and no doubt the scourge of pelicans everywhere. In fact, I'm surprised that with as many Fresh & Easy bags as I have, that pelicans aren't extinct. I'm about as popular with pelicans as BP is with shrimp.
"Why do you get the plastic bags?" Sue says, when I come home from the grocery store. "You can't recycle them."
She might as well have said, "You can't recycle them, you pelican killer."
No, I can't, but I'm not recycling them, I'm hoarding them. I know I am not behaving greenly, but I find the brown paper bags bulky. You can stuff 100 plastic bags in a larger plastic bag and they hardly take up any room at all.
Most bag collectors have several stashes. I have one upstairs in my closet, one in the garage and one in my truck.
I like to visit my bag collection because each bag reminds me of a pleasant experience that I've had shopping. The Fresh & Easy bags are charged with pleasant memories of the stores' string cheese, Colby jack and the little chocolate puddings with the foil tops. The oversized bags from Action Sports make me think about new pumps, Power Gels and boxes of tubes.
Even with all those bags, sometimes a bag collector comes up short. I'll take the dogs for a walk and discover that the truck stash only has grocery bags. A grocery bag is overkill for a dog. The only way I need a bag that big is if the dogs flush an elephant from the savanna. Then I will be grateful for the larger bag.
The other day in the garage, I was looking for a grocery bag and all I had were newspaper bags. I cannot put a bike helmet in a newspaper bag unless I have a pin head and I am not aware that I have a pin head.
The solution -- more bags. Bags are like money, a poor man's riches. Moreover, they can be useful in the savanna.
