Sometimes at the SwIngles there are not enough baggers for the bagees, so rather than stand there and watch the poor checker ring up all the groceries and then bag up all the groceries, I will pitch in and do the bagging. Sometimes at the SwIngles I suspect the management of preying on my co-dependency issues as a way to save some cheddar (like money, not cheese.) But the point is that I use this opportunity to put on little bagging demonstrations.
First off, there are the simple things. Like no bread under canned foods. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Not so much to the young squire doing the bagging. I’m betting he has never seen a bag of groceries much less unloaded one in his own house. So we start from the obvious rules.
Next we work on shapes and sizes, trying to get the boxes into the bags efficiently and using the smaller stuff to fill the bag up. Those plastic sleeves of cheese can be difficult to work with. Produce is an absolute nightmare, since some of the heavier stuff can be oddball shapes that don’t prevent smaller, more delicate items from sliding down and being crushed.
Let’s not forget that the frozen and refrigerated goods have their own ghetto. Putting them all together is like getting the dogs under the blanket on a cold night, the mutual lack of heat makes everything colder. Really, look it up. Everything should be arranged according to the manner in which it will be unloaded in my house. This is a particularly difficult thing for a bagger to figure out. Unless you are Johnny Depp in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”
So, like I was saying, I was at SwIngles one day and there was no bagger and my co-dependency issues kicked in along with my competitive in areas where nobody competes gene. I bagged like the wind. Morgan Freeman in “The Shawshank Redemption” had nothing on my skillz. The bagging was a work of art. When I got home, my Sweet Lady remarked, “Gee, it looks like those kids finally figured out how to bag these groceries.” If it were not for my immense humility, I would have been bursting with pride.