Grocery Bags Take Over Car Trunk - Yet System Works Well

If we remember to bring the bags into the store we have plenty.

Marketers and anthropologists would have a field day if they got their sweaty little research mitts on our chaotic collection of reusable grocery bags in the trunk of our car (a 2001 Nissan Maxima, the finest automobile ever produced anywhere). The stories those bags could tell!

And we keep getting more bags -- store promotions, whims, a new color set, a particular relative humidity -- and the reasons just keep coming.

Usually this is my place to complain and say that I wish all the bags could be thrown away and I would have one burlap sack which I would carry as I walked barefoot to the farmers market, grunting and spitting every step of the way.

Not quite. The bags have become ubiquitous tools, at times replacing luggage or food storage containers. I am waiting for the challenge of transporting water or a refreshing beverage in one of the hardier models.

The system works for us, despite how ridiculous it looks.