Shopping bag reusability hierarchy

Reduce, re-use, and recycle. But watch out when it comes to reusing shopping bags to carry your pumps while you commute to work in your New Balance sneakers. It’s important to coordinate. Not every bag goes well with your North Face jacket. Here are a few different sorts of bags, listed from lowest to highest level of yuppie acceptability:

Wal-Mart: Never acceptable. Why were you shopping at Wal-Mart to begin with? Why were you even in that part of town? I would put Sears in this category as well, if only because their bags are butt-ugly. Black bags from the liquor store and take-out bags with smiley faces should also never be reused.

Jewel/other thin grocery style bag: Only as a last resort. Trashy, and shows you don’t give a shit about the environment, because you clearly forgot your canvas bags at home last shopping trip.

Aldi: Still pretty trashy, but not as much, ’cause these are thick and durable. Shows that you’re cheap, since you shop at Aldi, but that’s kinda in fashion, so it’s passable.

Target: Your bag must at least meet the Target standard in in order to avoid cut eye.

Mall store: The more expensive the store, the more reusable the bag, except that paper beats plastic almost every time (fancy plastic shit like you’d get at Urban Outfitters can occasionally beat paper).

Major department store: Unless it’s from Macy’s, you’re all good. If it’s from Macy’s, you will lose points from the sort of dipshits that whine about the loss of Marshall Field’s, so carry with caution.

Trader Joe’s/Whole Foods: Hipster status symbol. Most rush-hour commuters will approve muchly. You may not care about the environment, but you care about looking like you do, and that’s good enough for credit.

Designer boutique: Clearly, you have a lot of money. Use this bag until it falls apart.

Dasani Tastes Like Soap



She Prefers Dasani, originally uploaded by mckayormacky.

I can’t believe people still don’t feel like complete suckers when they buy bottled water. I can’t believe they allow themselves to be seen in public, displaying their lack of planning skills and/or braincells to the world. I don’t even have anything to add to the bottled water discussion, because it’s all been said before.

It costs more per gallon than gasoline. It’s just tap water, anyway. It has less stringent quality standards compared to municipal water. Blah blah blah. You look a fool. 10x more a fool if I see you walking around with any of that expensive imported Whole Foods shit. Fucking. What. The fuck. Is it organic hydrogen oxide? (I will leave ranting about that pretentious fucking hipster store for another day.)

And yes. Dasani tastes like soap.

The only proper use for bottled water is to store in case of emergency.

I mean, you bastards do know that bottled water is a scam, right? As in, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola knowingly created a “need” out of thin air. You do realize that there are periodicals with names like “Beverage Industry Magazine” and “Beverage Digest” that run articles asking questions like “What can we do about those pesky assholes who come to establishments where our products are served, and then insist on ordering water, preventing us from getting their money?”. I wish I could find the specific article I’m thinking of (yes, I read periodicals with names like “Beverage Industry Magazine” — do not get me drunk and start talking about soft drinks, because I will bore you to death), because it was almost in those words. But I believe it may have been something that got accessed years ago that wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone not involved in the industry.

There must be other ways to monetize stupidity. I need to start brainstorming.

(P.S. While searching for Dasani on Flickr, I found a number of photos of a child by the same name. Which is… just special.)