someone tell me, please, why is it that the bag boys (or girls, or men or women) at the grocery store get so panicked whenever you bring your own canvas grocery sack? then, if they do consent to use said bag, they frantically pack every single item into the same bag (tomatoes on the bottom, naturally) as though the fact that i brought my own bag means that i shun the use of all other grocery sacks? what is so hard about this? and why won’t you just get out of the way and let me bag my own groceries, if this causes so much consternation?

i recall buying groceries for the first time in england and patiently waiting while all the items were scanned, paying for them, and then discovering that my groceries were in a heap in everyone’s way because i was suppose to have been bagging them myself, not to mention which, i was supposed to have brought my own or purchased grocery sacks. i think the clerk took pity on me and gave me a couple of bags to carry things home with, red-faced.