Thursday, August 9, 2007

The Plastic Bag


My husband got the shock of his life.

While buying jogging pants for the kids a few weeks ago, we went to a discount store near us. We found out what we're looking for in a few minutes.

My husband took charge of paying. I was standing beside him when the cashier asked him if he wanted a plastic bag for his purchases and he said 'yes.'

Oh, I was amused and tried to hide a smile. We didnt buy a lot, we could easily carry the things between us. But I let him do his thing.

As his usual practice, with the receipt in the hands, he checked that the cashier got the prices right, while walking to the car. And then he stopped in the middle of his stride and exploded, 'what! I had to pay for the plastic bag?'

Aha, that was why he nodded when the cashier asked him if he wanted a plastic bag. He wasnt aware that he must pay for it. And here I was thinking he is suddenly soo generous! Of course, he accosted me about it. Hey, it is not my fault! I told him I thought he knew that he must pay for the bag. And to leave me alone in my laughter, hehe! I had to tease him, too, my shame-faced and already pikon love!

He actually thought about returning the bag to the store, really! I told him he can do it but I wont go back with him inside. He let it go after thinking about it for a full minute! Back home, he told me to keep the bag in a safe place. Never to throw it away. He said he may want to see it sometimes to remind him how stupid he was!

P.S. We usually bring our own washable bags and baskets whenever we do our grocery shopping here in environment friendly-Germany and in most of Europe; we need to pay extra for the plastic bags. The big department stores provide the shopping bags free, but with the discount shops, you need to pay extra.

5 comments:

Christianne said...

Hehe Mr. Kurips talaga si hubby mo. But that's good! We also take cloth bags to the supermarket to save money (around 10 PHP din ang isang supot!) and reduce waste.

Diary of an Irish Woman said...

They do the same thing in Ireland - they introduced it to make people think twice re just using plastic bags and it worked - now most folks take along their own. Here in states so so many empty plastic bags in the streets - I think its a great idea!

Anonymous said...

Wow, really interesting! That's a good idea bringing cloth grocery bags. I have not seen one here and stores uses loads of bags. sometimes just a single item in a big bag. I wished something like this in the US will be implemented.

raqgold said...

christianne -- i love this idea, too.

diary of an irish woman -- i think this is being imposed in europe, let's hope it would reach the states, soon.

momoftwo -- you might want to become a one woman lobbyist and influence others, what do you think :-)

Lynn said...

I think "pay for you plastic bag" should be applied in the Philippines. Maybe you know this already, dito kasi, kahit maliit lang na bagay, nagrerequest ng plastic bag because it's for free. And then most households will use them as trash bags for their trash bins after.