Reusable grocery bags and I have a somewhat tumultuous history. For years, I spurned them in favor of disposable supermarket plastic bags, which played a critical role in my daily cat litter scooping routine. But then I switched to a different cat litter disposal strategy (I’ll spare you the details), broke free of my plastic bag dependency, and bought a couple reusable bags.
We got off to a great start, those first two bags and I. They came from Trader Joe’s, purveyor of fine foods and superior grocery bags. Approximately 92% of the reusable shopping bags you’ll see in Southern California are Trader Joe’s bags — I’m not sure how much of their popularity is due to actual bag quality and how much is due to the image they project. The Trader Joe’s bag is little classier than a regular supermarket bag, but less pretentious than a Whole Foods bag. It shows up in supermarkets, pet stores, and farmer’s markets. It’s Everybag.
My reusable bag honeymoon didn’t last long. I began to neglect the bags I’d once adored. I’d leave work at the end of the day intending to stop at the store on my way home, and then realize I didn’t have any bags with me. I’d postpone my shopping for a day — but then I’d forget the bags again the next day, and the next. Eventually, I’d run out of toilet paper or peanut butter or Sharpies or something, and I’d be unable to put it off any longer. In my despair and confusion I’d accept whatever bags they wanted to give me: plastic, paper, whatever. Once, I wound up with disposable bags made out of unicorn skins and industrial waste, assembled by 6-year-old girls working 18-hour shifts by candlelight in an abandoned coal mine. Clearly, something had to change.
My solution was to buy so many bags that there would always be some in my car. But then I discovered that I had a more serious problem: Grocery Bag Dysmorphic Disorder. I can never correctly estimate the number of bags I’ll need for the groceries I plan to buy. Often, I’ll bring in one bag and buy 2-3 bags worth of stuff. Once when I did this, a bagger actually managed to get everything into one bag — he approached it like a particularly challenging game of Tetris as I watched with ever-increasing fascination. I was amazed when he managed to get it to fit, and we shared a celebratory moment before I left the store. It was the high point of my day.
Other times, I’ll make the opposite mistake and bring in four bags when I’m buying three items, leaving the bagger to wonder whether I want them to stack the bags together to form one quadruple bag, or make two double bags and put some items in each, or leave the bags as singles and put the milk in one, the cereal in another, and open the egg carton and put six in each of the other two bags. I’m never quite sure which of these alternatives I want, either.
Very little is known about Grocery Bag Dysmorphic Disorder; in fact, a Google search for it returned literally no results. If anyone out there also suffers from this affliction, I just want you to know that you are not alone.
Check out today’s Dear Good Greatsby, in which my favorite advice columnist helps me out with an unrelated personal problem.
Unlikely Explanations 
I buy another reuseable that always seem to wind up covered with cat hair. I’m embarrassed to bring it to the store..so then another purchase. I end up buying a reuseable bag every time I shop…. so maybe not so reuseable after all?
Canvas bags are cat hair magnets. The TJs bags I use are made of some kind of slicker, cat-hair-repelling material.
Hahaha…
working with unicorn skulls is no easy task (even in full-on sunlight)!
They’re so finicky!
:)
Did I miss the series of Georgia O’Keefe-style unicorn skulls on your blog?
I’d like a reusable grocery bag with a Tetris design on it
^^ Me gusta. Make it so!
Can you imagine if someone got a tetris tattoo?
Even better, an animated Tetris tattoo.
I need this freaking badly. I’m going to go create magic tattoo ink now. BRB.
You could always make your own.
I want a bag made of unicorn skin! That sounds most excellent.
I just go into stores with big pockets. No bags, no hassle. Except for the part where I look like a weirdo. Oh, and now that google search yields four results, all of which are your blog. :)
{As an aside, I like your writing… do you think you could take a look at my blog and consider submitting something?}
This is why it’s good to know how to make an improvised bag out out your shirt or jacket, so you’ll always be prepared.
I try to make a point of never taking my shirt off in the supermarket.
I have the same kitty waste disposal system, so plastic bags it is for me. Though I recycle the unused ones (no really, I do – that is NOT a four foot high pile of plastic you see in the breakfast nook) so I am still a friend of the unicorns.
The Tetris game of bagging sounds like so much fun I might have to get myself a bag just to see it. I think we could start a national tournament.
Or some kind of Tetris bagging reality show. Have you ever seen “Extreme Couponing”? Maybe we could do a crossover episode.
My wife and I usually take two bags and fill two bags. Sometimes we only needed one and sometimes we go a few items over, but mostly we use two bags.
At home we have way more bags than two. We should give away bags because we only ever use two but we seem to think they’ll wear out or we’ll suddenly need more bags.
I’d guess that would be part of or a symptom of the disorder.
I found a cardboard box that fit quite snug inside one of the bags. I removed the top flaps and now I have either a box with handles, or a bag with a solid interior. I’m not sure which it is, but it’s very handy.
Also, my wife found a way to wrap the old plastic bags and tuck them into an empty baby wipes container so that now we have pull out bags kind of like a tissue box. We offer them to our customers when we sell our comics at events.
Thanks for the article!
You should really teach a class on this. You could also mass-produce and sell those box/bag hybrids. You could call your creation “The Bax”.
When I shop with the reusable bags, I always feel fat. They’re just not as flattering as putting a paper bag over my head.
I wish Trader Joe’s would make some solid black bags, or bags with vertical stripes.