More Bag Talk

Originally posted on Sunday, March 8, 2009

More bag talk!

To begin with, I want to say how I do not want to pay for cloth shopping bags that require me to promote a particular store.  If they want to pay me, or for my bags, then I will sport their sign, but please, do not ask me to purchase their bags so that I can advertise for them.  I believe they have it backwards.   I don't mind the Lands' End bag, as it's a very tiny little tag that is easy to miss.  The other bags though, I would rather not wear their logo and names on my bags, unless they want to pay for my bags.

OK, as you can see here, there is an assortment of bags.  I made the mistake of purchasing the Costco bags.  They were folded up and packaged together, so I could not see how big the bags were, before purchasing them.  Not only that, I couldn't see how awful the handles were.  They attempted to give you options on your handles.  You could have the longer ones or the short ones, depending on your needs.  However, when you have bags that large, neither are great handles.  Worse yet, the size of the bags is ridiculously large you can't carry anything in there, unless it's light weight.  The fabric the bags is made from is not great, some kind of plastic cloth and the stitching wears out quickly.  The handles, because there are four of them, get tangled when trying to grab just one set.  It did come in handy for putting purchases in it for Christmas time or birthdays, then I could sneak things into the house, but the bags are just not practical on any level, in my opinion.

These two black bags are from grocery stores.  They are made from that recycled stuff and they feel yucky and they are not all that strong.  The Safeway bag has two loops on them, which are suppose to help keep the back on the hook while you fill your bag, but unfortunately, it doesn't work...says my son who occasionally still bags groceries. ;)   He ends up turning the bag, side ways, so he can fill it more easily.  I decided to wash the bags, to see how they stand up.  Well, the lettering on the Safeway bag is coming off, just after one wash.  The Super Store bag has a plastic coated decal on it and as you can see, it's wearing off and cracking after one wash.  The good news to that is their advertisement is wearing off, but it makes me wonder how the whole bag is going to stand up to use.

Here is a picture to show you one of my red ripstop nylon bags, next to the store black bags.  The bottom corners are squared on the red bag, but it does not stand on it's own, unless you put something in the bottom of the bag, which makes it easy for storing the bags, and easier on the bag stands for the clerks.

Next, I wanted to show you a fun bag my sister made for us gals for carrying our things at the Sew Expo.  It's one of those fun bags you can wear on your back, shoulder or on your front.  It's a great drawstring bag and we were very happy to have them to help carry our purchases and class papers and projects.  These are great bags for so many things, just not great for grocery shopping, unless it's a small order.

I had to laugh at my experience at the grocery store, the other day.  I had all my bags, nicely ready for being packed.  I carefully handed them to the clerk so she could put them on the bag stand and she ignored them.  She took them from me and tossed them to the courtesy clerk, not wanting to deal with them.  We are going to have to work hard at educating the clerks how to use the bags.  Unfortunately, without a *standard* for cloth bags, clerks will be irritated when it comes to packing groceries in cloth bags that are not uniform to their plastic bags.  Oh well, we can keep trying!