Fun at Giant Foods

So I'm back at school, and I went to the Giant to pick up some food, to get ready for living on my own again. A few things struck me:

One of my friends, James, has been waiting for heelies to penetrate the market for at least five years. He's always thought they were neat, and would have really like to have had a pair when he was younger. I've seen them a lot recently, they must have reached some critical mass to actually penetrate the market, ala the hush puppy resurgence talked about in The Tipping Point. Giant now has signs on every door saying that you are not allowed to use them in the store. Not surprisingly, they have had accidents with kids wiping out on waxed floors and also with the kids sliding into carts. I think this is one of those products that you only know has actually caught on when you start to see it banned.

Also, Giant has a new program encouraging you to buy and use their reusable bags. I don't know the exact details, but I think there may be a slight discount if you do. If there is, they should consider totaling how much you could have saved this year by switching, and putting it in with your bonus card information.

There is a potential problem with the program though. I bought about $70 worth of groceries, which came in 21 bags. Note that only 8 of these were actual "parcels" the bags that I carry. The rest were double bags, or bagged items inside of the bag. The checkout guy that I had used some sort of system and spent a lot of time adding things to bags, folding that bag and inserting it in another, then opening it back up and adding another bag. I'm not sure, would he have expected me to have 21 reusable bags, or would he have filled my reusable bags with plastic? In a few cases, the sturdier reusable bag would have cut down on the need for double bagging, but only three of the bags were used to double bagging, so it wouldn't have made as much of a difference as it might seem.