Trying to be green, part 2

They have been available at the grocery stores for years and have been even more prominent lately: the reusable grocery shopping bag. Everyone should be using them, but so few of us do, even though we've heard numerous times how plastic bags use petroleum and linger in the landfills and icky chemicals are released in the manufacturing of paper bags. Sure, it is nice to have a few paper bags to put newspapers in for recycling and a few plastic bags for walking the dog, but they really pile up after a while. The grocery stores have bins where you can recycle your plastic bags, but who remembers to do that? And, are they really recycling those bags or do they just want you to think they are recycling them? We don't know for sure. Anyway, after months of threatening to buy a bunch of those reusable grocery shopping bags and bid farewell to paper and plastic, we finally did it. But now, the big question-- will we ever use these bags again? Place your bets, folks.

Make a decision, please!

I was in a department store the other day trying to buy a few things. I was not in a hurry per se, but I needed to return to work at some point. I could have accomplished all my tasks in a much shorter period of time had I not entangled myself in this trite, bordering on insanity decision-making process that always goes on in my head. First, I went to pick out a belt for Eddie. All he wanted was a black belt, silver buckle, size 34 waist-- one that he could wear with his work clothes or more casually with shorts. Not exactly detailed criteria. Anyway, I find the rack of belts. I could ignore all the brown ones and the ones with gold buckles. I started going through the black ones. Wrong size, buckle too big, belt too wide. Oh, wait, here is one that has the right sized buckle, black leather, size 34 waist. Perfect. Great. Walk away. Nope. Not so fast. Instead of taking the belt and going on my merry way, I continued to look through the belts to make sure there wasn't a better size 34 waist black belt with a silver buckle. This went on for several minutes before I walked away with the same belt I picked out in the first place.

Then, I went to women's lingerie. They had underwear on sale-- 3 for $21 or something like that. It was a brand I liked, so I started to look through the underwear. I have to pick out 3 pairs. Do I want beige, black, yellow or this nice rose color? I have to wade through the thong and bikini styles to find the hi-cut style. Or, should I get the hipster style? Oh, they don't have it in my size in that nice rose color. I finally find 3 pairs that I like. Perfect. Great. Walk away. Nope. I see another display with another brand that uses organic cotton and bamboo. I want to try that. That's a nice purple and a nice blue. Oh dear, I can't find 3 pairs. Then, I realized that I probably had enough underwear at home already, so I put the 3 pairs back and went on.

Next, the baby department. No, not for me, for our next door neighbor and one of my tennis teammates. Both are having boys, both have a girl already. So, they need boy clothes, right? Because that's what we do with babies right? Boys have to wear blue, girls pink. They can't use hand-me downs. Since my neighbor and my teammate don't know each other, I could get them the same thing and save some time. Yeah, right. I looked at toys, blankets, stuffed animals. No, keep looking. Three racks stuffed to the gills with baby clothes on clearance. Here we go. I found a couple of cute outfits. Perfect. Great. Walk away. Nope. I kept looking to see if I could find anything cuter (because they would know if I didn't). Finally, I settled on two outfits for each. I guess I'm done with shopping. No, wait, there were those shoes that I saw in the ad. Oh, you sold out of the size 10s? Hmm, maybe there is a pair sort of like it around here some place. Let me try these on. No, those won't work. Aaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!

Obviously, I eventually made it out of the store and back to work. On the ride back, I kept asking why I insist on tormenting myself in this manner. I guess I just want things to be perfect. Good answer. Great. Walk away. Now.