A Tale of Two Baggers

I've come to the conclusion that there are two types of baggers at the grocery store. There are the baggers who cram as much as possible into every bag, so that each one weighs about eight hundred pounds. You know the bagger who asks, "Do you want your milk in a bag?" and when you say yes, she puts BOTH gallons of milk in the same bag, then stuffs a few cans of tomato sauce, a roll of paper towels and a bag of oranges in there for good measure. These baggers can usually be counted on to never group things together in the bags logically. So you have frozen food in a bag with canned goods, toilet paper, laundry detergent and (ahem) feminine products.

Or, since I buy the super-economy size package of toilet paper (I hate running out!), they put the box of popsicles in the bag with that. Only, sometimes I don't bring the toilet paper in right away, because I like to get all of the cold stuff put away first. Only I didn't know that there was a box of popsicles in that bag, so there now there is a big old mess in the back of the van.

You have to be Hercules to carry these bags in. And if SugarBug insists on being carried (not as common an occurrence as it once was, but it still happens on occasion), it's darn near impossible to get the groceries in without the help of another adult, who is, of course, at work. [Is that the longest sentence EVER??!!]

And if you DO manage to carry them in, there is always one bag that is so grossly overloaded that it spills its contents all over the garage floor. And for me, it always seems to be the bag carrying the jar of spaghetti sauce or the bottle of wine. And I do love cleaning that up off of the garage floor after it has run under the van!

The other kind of bagger is the one who puts one, maybe two items in each bag. Leaving me with eighty-three skrillion bags in the back of my van. The up side of this is that I can enlist the help of the SugarBabies to carry the groceries in, since no one bag weighs more than four ounces. (Except of course for the milk, which for some reason, the baggers all insist on putting BOTH gallons of milk in the same bag! Why? Why? Why?) The down side is that when I get this bagger, I can't see out the back of my van once it is loaded up, so numerous are the bags.

And the children. Oh, the children LOVE this bagger because one of their very favorite games is the "fling-the-grocery-bags-all-over-the-kitchen-and-drive-mommy-crazy-game." Mommy is not such a big fan of this game.

I just wish we could find a happy medium somewhere. I don't understand why they can't put a reasonable number of similar items in each bag. I actually attempt to make their job easier by grouping my groceries logically on the conveyor belt as I take them out of the cart. I put all of the produce together, the frozen goods together, the refrigerated items, the canned goods, bathroom stuff, cleaning things, etc. It's almost like they make an effort to foil me.

Hmmmmm. It's all beginning to make sense now. They're in cahoots with my children, aren't they?