“Open the pod bay doors Hal.”
Potential problems of the Space Shuttle if the payload bay doors refuse to close.
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“In an April 30, 1956, keynote address at the Washington and Lee Mock Convention, Barkley spoke of his willingness to sit with the other freshman senators in Congress; he ended with an allusion to Psalm 84:10, saying ‘I’m glad to sit on the back row, for I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty.’[158] He then collapsed onstage and died of a heart attack.[42] He was buried in Mount Kenton Cemetery near Paducah.[14]”
From Sen. Barkley’s Wikipedia page. Other things I didn’t know: He was the first VPOTUS to be called “Veep”; and HST had the VPOTUS seal created for him when he served under Truman.
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I recently made a mistake with a birthday gift for someone I really don’t know at all (an old high school friend of my best friend…long story). I got her a collection of really fun-printed ripstop nylon bags that can be folded into their own little pouch so they fit easily in a purse or coat pocket. I keep a couple in my purse, and more in my car. Never occurred to me…they don’t charge for plastic bags in Tennessee, so she had absolutely no idea why someone would want bags like that.
I’m enough of an environmentalist that I’ve been bringing my own bags for decades now, so I have been thrilled to see the recent behavioral change that has made what used to be an anomaly into the local norm: what a difference a mere $0.07 makes.
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Safeway is teaching me to bring my own bag by supplying me with plastig bags that rip at the bottom, while whole foods is teaching me the same thing by supplying me with a paper bag that rips at the handles.
(I walk instead of driving. Sometimes my perambulations make me aware that I need to bring something back to the house.)
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Reasons I tell the… environmentally unaware that carrying fold up bags is a great idea:
- Ever bought a bunch of little things from different stores, and you just want to drop them all into one big bag?
- Reusables hold more
- Reusables mean never having to double bag a heavy item, then having the bag disintegrate before you can bring the item home.
- They avoid scenarios where carrying a store bag would be awkward/embarrassing. Some stores get so into branding they forget customers don’t necessarily want to advertise they shop at “Fred’s Incontinence and Hemorrhoids Cure-all Warehouse” or whatever.
- They’re easier to use than disposables.
- They’re nicer looking and more fashionable.
- Bringing your own bags/basket used to be the norm. What comes around, goes around.
Notice I never, ever mention the environment part if I can help it.
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I know, right? Great list.
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This is interesting, if by interesting we mean ‘ew, gross’:
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I also like to mention the bags blowing around because that’s the one I get most worked up about. Fucking litter is just wrong.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed, in the last few years, even in podunk nowhere Midwest small towns, is that no one is confused anymore about why I have bags on the grocery store belt. I used to get weird looks and eye rolling but now they just start loading up my totes.
Anymore, the thing I have to explain is that the meat really can just go in the canvas bag because if it leaks, the bag will be washed.
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Sometimes. My daughter went to an anime/manga thing and left bags sitting around afterward. One was a nice thick reusable bag that was just the right size for a lunch bag. I didn’t even notice the ad on the side. It was several weeks later that she pointed out that I’d been carrying lunch to work every day in a bag advertising erotic gay manga. 
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My son got a laugh out of that one.
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Someone my brother used to work with got sent to work by his wife with a La Senza lingerie lunch bag when she was annoyed with him.
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If he’s worried about his masculinity, I guess.
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For that industry, yeah. Very few women in it beyond support roles.
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They added those fees in New York but it didn’t change my habits that much. When I moved to Tennessee, bags are free, but I decided I wanted to use reusables, so I did a lot of comparing on Amazon. I found two types of bags. One is like a fabric box. The other is big, thin, and strong and folds into a little envelope. I have a set of each - 3 of the boxes, 5 of the bags. The reason I remember them and use them is because they are so functional, and the folding ones are easy to carry. I get lots of compliments on them and I like using them more than the plastic things.
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Those sound great!
I’ve got one bag in a holder clipped to the outside of my purse (came with the holder and clip), and another tucked inside my purse. So handy.
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I might be a dork, but I like to buy bags as souvenirs in places I visit, even if it’s just a Trader Joe’s. But, I also use them for crochet projects and organizing my prodigious crap.
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