one green thing

I ran over to the local grocery store, reusable bag in hand and I thought I was doing well. I had a small basket full of items (only needed one produce bag—I forget to bring my reusable stash with me) and I headed to the checkout. I asked the nice young man at the bagging station, “Can you put everything in this?” “Sure,” he responds. I’m smiling and I’m happy. I’ve done a small good green thing. I saunter out pretty proud of myself

I get home, still happy as a clam (although I had to fill up my car and the price stung and the lack of options made me smolder). I began unpacking my items. WHAT? I cried. What was in my awesome reusable bag? A plastic bag wrapped around my meat. Ahh! I was thwarted! I thought I did good, but I wasn’t paying close attention. It was nice that the young man didn’t want any meat juices to spill out on any other items, but now I had a grocery bag and a produce bag. Two bags! Even with my reusable. It was a sad moment.

For my one green thing today, however, I am vowing to take reusable produce bags with me to the store (until I get around to making fabric produce bags I found at Circle of Life Foundation, which is on my list). But until then, reusing what I have will be the baby step. Maybe this weekend I’ll get to the fabric produce bags.