Friday, January 13, 2006

Culling of the herd.

Sometimes, when a thing gets to be too plentiful, and can no longer be supported by its environment, it's time to round up the more inferior in the herd, and give them the heave-ho.

That's right -- you guessed it -- it's time for the annual grocery bag roundup!

Yeeeeeeeeeeee-HAAAAAAAW!



Oh, shoot. I should have taken a picture of the bags before they were sorted. Oh well... just imagine two giant bags hanging from a thing on a door that were so jam packed that they stopped the door from closing properly, and you'll know what the "before" picture would have been. Anyways, this is the pile of bags that were deemed unsuitable for keeping. Look at them all! There's no way anyone could re-use that many bags. And more and more bags come in each week! It's insane, I tells you!

Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: "But Green Floppy... all of these bags look the same? How did you ever decide which bags to keep and which to toss?" Well, I'll be glad to tell you. No -- I'll do more than that. I'll show you!


See that? That is what we on my planet call a "see thru bag". These are the WORST kind of bag to have around. Any grocery store that uses them -- *cough*Copps*cough* -- should be hauled out to the dog-shooting tree and shot. Like a dog. What were they thinking when they decided on a see thru bag?? Did they think that folks would be so proud of their grocery purchase, that they'd want everyone to see EXACTLY what they bought? Crazy! Please... like I want everyone to know that I'm purchasing a roll of toilet paper and a magazine and nothing else. Sheesh!


This bag? Way. Too. Big. Nobody has a trash can that big. Nobody! A bag like this is completely useless for re-using. Not usable again at all. And I bet that whoever brought this bag home didn't even purchase anything big enough to fill it up. That Fleeting Farm place always puts stuff in these HUGE bags for no good reason. Giant Baggy Jerks.



That bag in the top left is broken (as are very many of the bags around it!). Buh. Ro. Ken. What use do we have for a psychic if she's insane? (Wait, what? Where'd that come from?? (Serenity on DVD -- get it now!)) What I meant to say was: What use does anyone have for a bag what's broken? Do you put all of your broken products in it? Certainly wouldn't want to put anything good in it, because it would just fall out of the holes and stuff. I don't know why a broken bag wouldn't have been immediately thrown out in the first place!


Oh! These bags -- Gasbag's, Pig, Some kind of Market -- are way too flimsy. They are made from a much thinner plastic substance, and would never stand up to holding trash. Also, they're on the smallish side. The openings are slightly more narrow than a regular good bag. Which makes them inferior. Inferior!


Bags with Christmas all over them? Yuk! There's no way I want to see Christmas bags at any time of the year. Including Christmas! And what is THAT? What is that thing on the right??

It's.. it's.. well, it's not a bag, that's for sure. At least, not in the traditional sense. It looks about the size of bag you might could stick a stick of summer sausage into, if you were wont to put summer sausage into a bag. But never, ever, in a hundred and forty-nine years, would anyone EVER be able to make re-use of this "bag" thing. Out with you!

Oooh, my favoritest bag of all time! Look at the nice greenish blue-ish hue they have. They let you carry your groceries home without the entire 'hood gawking at the contents! And then they're the perfect color to blend right in with the trash can. These bags are special! They have been set aside, and will be going on a magical journey down the hall to the Amazing Bathroom Bag Box. Congratulations, greenish blue-ish bags! You're the winners in bag-life's lottery!

And finally, after all of that culling, this is all that's left. One nice little bag of bags. A bag of bags that no longer interferes with the proper closing of the small hall closet door. Yay!

13 comments:

Stamppy said...

BWAAHAHHAAHHAAHAHA. To have such a bag problem would be a treat! I like your outlines and arrows!! Great examples of your bag collection!!

Here, where I live, you don't usually get a bag to put your groceries in. It's a rare occurence indeed! You need to Think Ahead and take a receptacle of some kind to carry your groceries, depending on if you grocery shop by car or by bike.

I like to ride my bicycle. So I usually toss in a cloth, washable bag in my bike basket. Sometimes I use the bag with the green frog on the side. We have a whole carp-load of cloth washables waiting in our closet, which sometimes causes the same problem you described - when the door doesn't shut properly.

One day, I rode my bicycle 7 kilometers to buy some pillows. Huge pillows!! I also bought other items. The little bicycle basket was overflowing, my hands were full, and stuff was strapped to my back. I must have looked like a homeless person. Luckily, I was able to put my small items into a cloth bag. Those bungee cords work good, too, for securing purchases.

If you shop by car, you should take a box (or pick up a box at the store from the aisles) or a wicker or plastic basket.

When the rare moment occurs that we do get a nice plastic bag, we hoard it, only to be used for special occasions.

Green Floppy said...

What kind of crappy planet is that? No bags... how you supposed to line your trash? Pppft.

Ooh, you should take a picture of you on your bicycle when it be loaded down with purchases. That'd be funny!

They always say that the best answer to "Paper or plastic?" is: Neither! I brought my own bag! But I don't ever see anybody who actually does that. HAHAAHAHAHA

I have a very large red bag that I got at a book sale once that I keep in my car. I don't take it in to put groceries or anything in it, but once I get home, I'll take all the bags and stick them inside this giant red bag so's that I can carry it all in at once. That way, the good plastic bags don't tear and they can be re-used!

I could still pull the bag of rejected bags out of the trash -- you want I should M Bag them to you? HAHAAHAHAH

Stamppy said...

How kind of you to suggest a picture of me on my bicycle! A picture of me riding a bicycle is a request I often receive, from aliens of other planets! I will have a photograph made the next time I purchase some huge pillows and other items.

If you do M-Bag some of your reject bags to me, you could also include past issues of the local "rag" known as "Courier." That is only a suggestion, tho.

Green Floppy said...

Oh, I like suggestions. Sometimes I don't know everything, and other people often have good ideas to share.

How does one M bag something, anyways. And how much do it cost? hahahahahaha

Stamppy said...

That is sooo nice that even green guys from other planets have that so human-like ability to take suggestions now and then.

What is an M-Bag, aka Mail-Bag?
Here's the place that has all the answers:
http://www.usps.com/global/mbags.htm

I've done some M-baggin myself now and then. It's easy. You just put your printed matter in a box. Yes, a box. Even though it's called an M-"bag." Tape the box shut. Put the addresses (to/from) on the box. Put some clear tape over the addresses, too, in case that part of the box gets damaged in transit.

You will also need a custom's form - ask at your local PO, who will tell you that you *don't need one. If the box is small enough, it will fit into an "M-bag" bag, which the PO has in the back room. You have to ask for it. If they have run out of M-bags, or your box is too large, or if Jürgen is just having a really bad day and doesn't give a rip anymore, then the PO might just send your box via the M-bag method, but with no bag at all.

Just make sure you don't slip in anything besides printed matter. They hate that when they find a 3-ring hole punch inside!

*To be really kind to the recipient of an overseas M-bag, insist and demand that the PO attaches a highly visible green custom's form to the box itself. The PO will probably also want you to fill out a "tag" that gets attached to the M-bag. It's OK to do this. But the green custom's form is what's needed for the box to get through customs on the recipient's end.

If there is no custom's form, the box gets sent to the allmighty Zoll office in a town 20 miles away and they will send a letter to tell you to pick up your package by a certain date, and you need to have ID and your mother's birth certificate to get it. OK, the birth certificate comment was a little overboard, but they get really grouchy and like to go by the rules, as "ve must have ordah."

I see you also asked about cost. An M-bag is way cheaper than airmail and even cheaper than surface mail (aka ship). But I'm not sure of the cost. One website said $1 per pound, and that sounds about right, but I could be wrong. Why is the M-bag so cheap, you might wonder? It's because the M-bag has the lowest priority of all mail, and gets tossed into a lonely corner and sits and waits until a crate is full enough to be mailed out.

Green Floppy said...

Wow, that all sounds so complimacated. I hope my furry green head can keep it all straight!

Stamppy said...

Hey furry head! I just got a package of all your reject plastic bags!! Ha ah! Who's that person you found to mail them, cuz person also included some very old newspapers from last year!! It will make good bathroom reading material, and later can be used to line the garbage cans! Woo!

Also, the person must be sort of religious cuz they enclosed a book of religiousness.

Can't figure out what the paper origami thing is, tho, and I think it must have broke apart in transit.

Nice magnet & pin of some twin girls by their mother! I think I've seen those people somewhere before.

The package came really fast, so it must not have been sent via the mail bag methode.

Stamppy said...

Oh, I forgot - A special shout-out to the sender!!

Green Floppy said...

I mailed them myself! The post office does not discriminate against us alien types. In fact, they love it when we come in, because it's usually a big pile of postage when we send something. I think they took advantage of me, though, because they wouldn't let me use the M bag -- said it had to be bound books only.

Those other non-bag items were just for packaging, to keep the bags from bouncing around and getting broken during transit.

Oh! But the origami thing is some artwork I made. It's a pope hat! If it came apart, just connect the two ends together like a hat, and then you have a hat like the pope.

Stamppy said...

Your Jürgen friend "messed up big time"!! It clearly states in the Post Office manual:

"All categories of printed matter can be enclosed in a M-bag.

Printed matter is defined as paper on which words, letters, characters, figures, images, or any combination thereof, not having the character of a bill or statement of account, or of actual or personal correspondence, have been reproduced by any process other than handwriting or typewriting."

Clearly you should sue them, or complain and flail loudly in the lobby and maybe they'll give you a refund!! Nowhere in the Post Office manual does it say "bounded materials only"!!

Oh, a Pope hat! Yea, that's kind of what I thought it might be. Yea, a Pope hat..... Maybe you have a picture of one that's put together, so's I can see how it should look.

Green Floppy said...

I haven't seen my friend Jürgen there in a long time. Thought I saw him doing out-doors mail once, so maybe he finally flipped out and got transferred to a less people-contact job.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too, about the M-bags! Unless you wanted to send it in the really cheap book-rate M-bag. But regular M-bag could be anything! Those bastardos! I'm going to do that flailing thing next time I'm in there! My long green arms will be flying EVERYWHERE!

You can see a pope hat on this monkey, here:
http://tinyurl.com/93eua
Or was this one the monkey...: http://tinyurl.com/aolx4

Stamppy said...

*shock*

Alien - didn't you know it's a sin to call the Pope a monkey?

Green Floppy said...

No, no, no, you mis-understood my comment. I was just trying to figure out which tiny url went to the monkey picture. Not that I thought pope was monkey or monkey was pope. See, I had two of them, you see, and I really really wanted the monkey one to be the first one, because he looked cute with that hat on, but then I put the tinies in and got them all mixed up, and didn't know for sure which one was monkey and which one was pope!

*blink*

*innocenteyes*

*blink*

What?