The Sorry State of Grocery Bagging

Sean Bonner and I apparently have the same complaint, which is that no one knows how to bag groceries anymore. (Not like back in the good old days when Sean and I were working at grocery stores, walking uphill both ways through the snow to get to work, no doubt.)

When I was a cashier/bagger, I had to learn the anal retentive way of bagging groceries, but it served me well. When I bag my own groceries, it is a thing of beauty. When the Ralphs bagger does it, my bread is crushed under a can of diced tomatoes and a bottle of Woolite.

For those of you interested, here are the official City Elf "Five Rules to Bagging Groceries":

1) Don't make the bags too heavy. Build a base of large boxes and/or cans and work up to lighter items, like pasta or Pop-tarts. (Mmmm, Pop-tarts....)

2) Cold items go together. Please don't put my deli rotisserie chicken and my ice cream in the same bag.

3) Crushable/breakable items on top or in their own bag. Especially my eggs, since I prefer to scramble them myself at home, thank you.

4) Household cleansers or health & beauty items in a separate bag, or at least in a plastic bag before being placed with food. Lettuce does not taste good when it is covered with shampoo from that leaky bottle.

5) If something has a handle (like a 12-pack of Diet Coke or a gallon of water), it probably doesn't need a bag.

There you go! Everything you never wanted to know about grocery bagging. Consider this my public service for the day...