What’s wrong with this picture?

I had a rather interesting adventure on my weekly grocery shopping trip to Kroger today.

And no, the price of milk had nothing to do with it, although I did happen to notice that the price of gas at a competitor’s pump has officially topped the $4.00/gal mark. *Ouch* And this is Texas, where we’re all supposed to have oil wells in our back yards!

Anyhoo…so there I am in the checkout line, with my eco-friendly canvas bags in tow. In my haste to unload the cart, however, I neglected to give those eco-friendly canvas bags to my equally hasty bagger. Much to my dismay – and the dismay of many a tree-hugger – I noticed that she had already filled two plastic bags and was starting on a third!  *Gasp!*  Quickly, I thrust my eco-friendly canvas bags in her direction, crying, “I brought my own bags!  I have four of them!”

Ah, all was well once again.  Or so I thought.  After giving up both children’s college funds to pay for groceries, I turned to get my cart and noticed that my hasty bagger had simply placed the plastic bags INSIDE the canvas ones.  And despite the fact that I had one completely empty canvas bag, she had bagged the final two items with separate plastic bags and was trying to squeeze them into one of three already-bulging canvas bags.

Kinda defeats the purpose, don’t it?

I promptly managed to empty out two of the plastic bags in the store and recycled them on the way out the door.  Thinking I had reached my daily quota of inanity, I put my groceries in the car and proceeded to the gas station to fill up my non-eco-friendly SUV.  As I pulled up to the pumps, this is what I saw (and it is probably the ONLY time I have dearly wished for a camera phone):

two teenage boys with bikes laying on the ground next to the pump, holding the nozzle in their hands.

My friends, you know things have gotten real bad when people are having to resort to putting gas in their bicycles.

(come to find out, they did have a gas can that they were trying to fill up.  However, in another turn of sheer stupidity, one boy emptied out the remaining gas on the concrete before filling the can back up.  I wanted to scream, “Don’t throw that away, boy!  That’s liquid GOLD!”)