July 1 ushered in (as dates are wont to do) a new law requiring big-ass stores in the state of California to sell and use reusable shopping bags. Cool, huh?
Here's how my experience went down today at Target. The kids and I were just finishing our two-hour tour of the great-red behemoth, having filled our cart with paper towels, Hershey's Kisses, vitamin water and a skateboard when I spotted an odd item in the knife aisle. It was a display hook of little red pouches. Upon squinting, I realized they were the new Target shopping bags, zipped into bite-sized little treats.
Super excited, but realizing they were inferior to the Trader Joe's shopping bags which can carry a case of wine and your baby, I opted to only purchase four instead of ten.
Very excited to break in my new toys, I put them on the conveyor belt first so Cashier Guy could use them to bag my purchases. He responded by ringing up my four reusable shopping bags and promptly dropping them into a plastic bag.
I took a moment, remembering that "Are you retarded?" is not a nice thing to say to strangers. Then, I explained to the lovely gentleman that what he had just put in the plastic bag were, in fact, re-use-able (say it slow and annunciate) shopping bags that Target now sells. Blank stare. "Which you can put my purchases in by simply unzipping them into full-sized bags," said in best cheerleader, not at all condescending, voice.
"Wow, that's cool. What a good idea," says he of little training or in-the-loopness. But darn it if he didn't manage to fit all of my crap into those four bags, not squishing or overloading a single one.
Kuddos to Cashier Guy, and WTF to Target Corp. Did you forget to tell your employees? Did you forget to stock the bags in a location that might be seen by more than 2 people this week. Were the nine days between July 1 and today not enough time for you to find a good location to display the bags. I know how hard it is for Target to move merchandise around given your infrequent sales or moving of clearance items to an end cap. Who goes down the knife aisle looking for shopping bags? Not even Rachel Ray. Her stuffs already on the end cap. Just a tip, put bags up front, by the registers. Trader Joe's has found that to be very effective since it's where the whole ringing up, checking out, bagging of shit happens.
For your viewing pleasure, I've included photos of the open and zipped* versions of the new bags. On sale now for 99 cents, in the knife aisle, at a Target near you, in California, but perhaps in other states where they know even less about this new item.
I can't wait to take them back to use them. That's really going to fuck them up. Maybe I should put my name on them with a Sharpie.
Here's how my experience went down today at Target. The kids and I were just finishing our two-hour tour of the great-red behemoth, having filled our cart with paper towels, Hershey's Kisses, vitamin water and a skateboard when I spotted an odd item in the knife aisle. It was a display hook of little red pouches. Upon squinting, I realized they were the new Target shopping bags, zipped into bite-sized little treats.
Super excited, but realizing they were inferior to the Trader Joe's shopping bags which can carry a case of wine and your baby, I opted to only purchase four instead of ten.
Very excited to break in my new toys, I put them on the conveyor belt first so Cashier Guy could use them to bag my purchases. He responded by ringing up my four reusable shopping bags and promptly dropping them into a plastic bag.
I took a moment, remembering that "Are you retarded?" is not a nice thing to say to strangers. Then, I explained to the lovely gentleman that what he had just put in the plastic bag were, in fact, re-use-able (say it slow and annunciate) shopping bags that Target now sells. Blank stare. "Which you can put my purchases in by simply unzipping them into full-sized bags," said in best cheerleader, not at all condescending, voice.
"Wow, that's cool. What a good idea," says he of little training or in-the-loopness. But darn it if he didn't manage to fit all of my crap into those four bags, not squishing or overloading a single one.
Kuddos to Cashier Guy, and WTF to Target Corp. Did you forget to tell your employees? Did you forget to stock the bags in a location that might be seen by more than 2 people this week. Were the nine days between July 1 and today not enough time for you to find a good location to display the bags. I know how hard it is for Target to move merchandise around given your infrequent sales or moving of clearance items to an end cap. Who goes down the knife aisle looking for shopping bags? Not even Rachel Ray. Her stuffs already on the end cap. Just a tip, put bags up front, by the registers. Trader Joe's has found that to be very effective since it's where the whole ringing up, checking out, bagging of shit happens.
For your viewing pleasure, I've included photos of the open and zipped* versions of the new bags. On sale now for 99 cents, in the knife aisle, at a Target near you, in California, but perhaps in other states where they know even less about this new item.
I can't wait to take them back to use them. That's really going to fuck them up. Maybe I should put my name on them with a Sharpie.
Zipped:
Unzipped:
*Hop over to The Felt Mouse for a picture of the $1.49 flat-bottomed shopper version and more info on the Target bags.
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