Spilt Tomatoes

I was in the flow - waxing poetic about the lushness of our Arizona landscape for my sustainability blog. 9 o’clock! And we hadn’t eaten. I peeked into Jeremy’s room. My apathetic teenager was finally at his homework. It was up to me to procure dinner. I rushed out of the house, leaving a yapping dog in my wake. Ideas whirled in my head as I strolled to the store. When I arrived, I asked the cashier if she had a pencil.  I quickly jotted down my (no doubt brilliant) musings on the back of a receipt, then went about my shopping. I scooped several varieties of bulk trail mix into plastic bags. (Note to self: don’t shop when hungry.) Then I grabbed a bag of tomatoes for our spaghetti sauce that night.

As I unloaded my groceries on the conveyor belt, I realized – Doh!  In the midst of writing a blog on sustainability, I had forgotten my reusable bags. Again! I already had all those plastic produce bags full of tomatoes and trail mix. I would just carry them without a grocery bag. I announced to the bemused sales clerk, “This will be a guilt free walk home.” Then, just as I finished crossing the street, I felt something bounce off my toe. I looked down and saw tomatoes rolling to the curb. ARGH! I motioned, “One moment” to a car at the corner and scrambled to pick them up.

For the rest of the walk home, I thought about the ten (count ‘em ten) plastic bags I was carrying. I made a mental note to look up where all that plastic came from. I thought about how all those plastic bags would end up in a landfill - or worse - along the street, - or even worse - in the ocean! I racked my brain, trying to concoct a trick to help me remember the reusable grocery bags – as if going to the grocery store wasn’t reminder enough.

Grocery store – grocery bag, grocery store – grocery bag. Not that complicated. Sustainable thoughts flashed through my mind: turn the water off while brushing teeth, switch off the light (in my dad’s voice…), the cereal box goes into the recycling bin, onion peels in the compost box, feed The Pooh... The Pooh! That’s it! Our dog! She always followed us to the door yipping to go with. Yip! Yip! Yip! Perhaps I could imagine her as a yipping grocery bag!

Boy, do I need something to eat.