Being Douchey for a Good Cause

i have a million of those reusable tote bags and i never remember to bring them with me to the store.

a million = like five

I had to train myself by forcing myself not to go to the store unless I had them on me. Of course I live a few blocks from the store so it's easy enough to stop home and get them.

The ones I have right now say B'Nai Keshet Synagogue on them (my wife briefly worked there), and I know I shouldn't find that embarassing but I do.

when i do bring them with me i'm actually really ashamed because i feel like a douche whenever i ask the cashier to put my groceries in them -- i've actually just gotten the default plastic bags and then when no one was looking switched my stuff out into the tote bags, putting the plastic bags back with the others at the checkout.

and one time a cashier at trader joe's gave me shit because i brought in a ralph's bag rather than using one of theirs!

The store in question (my neighborhood store) usually waits for the shopper to present the tote bag, and if the shopper doesn't have one, then the cashier goes "oh! no tote bag, uh, no problem!" and happily pulls out a paper bag. The store no longer carries plastic bags. There's also a gazillion (meaning 100+) tote bags hanging by each cashier area for some price.. $3.00 each? They're really purple and sturdy.

The ones I have right now say B'Nai Keshet Synagogue on them (my wife briefly worked there), and I know I shouldn't find that embarassing but I do.

-- Hurting 2, Thursday, April 17, 2008 2:11 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^ self-hating jew?

I got a bunch of nylon bags that fold up really small, and I just keep them in the bottom of my bag so they're always there. Envirosacks and Baggu work well.

^^ self-hating jew?

-- s1ocki, Thursday, 17 April 2008 02:40 (7 minutes ago) Link

Perhaps, but more just non-religious Jew who doesn't want people in my neighborhood to think I'm something I'm not.

i was jk ya know.

Ah, PCC Mackro? I have walked out of there carrying ridiculous armloads of groceries rather than admit that I needed a bag.

I'll admit to asking random people waiting for the Freemont bridge to stop idling - with about a 50% success rate. Nobody has actually been rude, but I’ve also never asked anybody in a sooped up truck because I’m a coward.

I reuse my grocery bags as trash bags.

i use grocery store bags as my garbage bags, is there a reason why i should do the reuseable bags for shopping instead? where do i put my garbage other than, er, plastic bags i would buy at the store?
xpost ha!

if ever i am douchey on ilx it is for a good cause

In my experience you have a lot more of those plastic bags in stockpile than you think you do. I've been shopping with the totes for several months now and we're still drawing on the stockpile of plastics from pre-tote days for cat litter & other small trash cans.

I'll admit to asking random people waiting for the Freemont bridge to stop idling - with about a 50% success rate. ...

-- the higgs, Thursday, 17 April 2008 05:05 (3 hours ago) Link[

Do you actually get out of your car and go up to their windows to ask them? What's your approach?

I always keep a lovely jute shopping bag in my car for when I drive down to the hypermarket to buy a pint of milk.

just get a cow

Why do I need a cow when I've got a car?

I believe Miss Manners is against the idea of being douchey for a good cause, and no one sides with her more firmly than I do. I wish she could come to my wedding!

That old man should mind his own! Self-righteousness solves few things, only yielding a fleeting smug satisfaction but effecting no change on the other! You would not have thought it were for a good cause were you not already a proponent of said cause! What id he had asked if you had yet accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior! (?) Man I have feelings about this subject!

!
!
!

magnet, meet pacemaker

exclamation pointe

grocery shopping is such an emotional experience.

this is how i thought of chaki during that whole luna debacle

Maybe people should try being TACTFUL for a good cause.

Abbott OTM, here, fuck that shit. I think that sort of approach most often only alienates people from one's "cause".

At one of those WTO protests in 2000, (whoa, I think it was exactly eight years yesterday!) some random woman lectured me about smoking a cigarette, and how it was not in keeping with the spirit of the thing and so forth.

Naturally, I flicked the cigarette out in her face and then walloped her one.

Roy Cropper to thread.

im totally with abbott here. putting ideology ahead of treating people well is sort of the worst. i mean yes of course id be impolite to pol pot etc etc, but in most situations, your philosophy doesnt demand you be a prick.

sticking up for people by being a douche to other people is forgivable (and sometimes fine) IMO though

I sort of want to back the good-cause-douchiness, but that's only b/c I was raised to avoid confrontation and/or angering people, and to not say anything if I couldn't say anything nice...and I always thought that was bullshit because then no one says anything important at all and no one sends each other to therapy WHERE THEY BELONG.

Yeah, but it's possible to confront someone without being condescending or super-aggro about it.

yeah fighting can be part of treating people well!

I want to see you in a confrontation, Laurel! "That's right, you're going to THERAPY, Buster!"

I wd like to send my dad to therapy, a lot of the time. o_O

I FEEL YA

wow seattle people are fucking full of it

saving the world, one totally unnecessary dick move at a time

Actually, it was in DC!!!

Also, I think she was maybe all of 18 years old, so...she's excused

nobody was talking to you

there, there

I assumed this suggestion was a joke, guys. Are you being serious Mackro?

yeah fighting can be part of treating people well!

True, in the best of circumstances it shows that you respect and take the other person seriously enough to air out your/their grievances...and it also demonstrates that you have enough faith in yourself and the other party along the lines of recognizing that neither or none of you will crumble into pieces if things get a little heated. So, yeah.

nobody was talking to you

You mentioned Seattle, and I thought you were referencing my WTO-thing tale.

The other day I was being tailgated by some guy in a big SUV, and I stopped at the bike path - the bike path! - and he honked his horn and made some gestures, so after allowing walkers and cyclists to continue on their way on the BIKE PATH I drove, like, two miles an hour waving merrily at the SUV guy through my sunroof.
I felt like parking in the middle of the road, getting out and confronting him on his doucheyness. But probably just driving really, really slow was a good way to out douche him.

Oh yeah I've walked REALLY SLOWLY in front of someone driving down a pedestrianised street before. Perhaps there'd been a terrible accident and they were rushing to the hospital.

I would prefer to think that I out douched him.

But, y'know, I wasn't kidding when I said grocery shopping is really emotional. Emotionally draining. But there have been huge threads devoted to this kind of stuff, so I'm not going to bore you with my descriptions of Whole Foods customers and their utter inability to shop like normal human beings.
That place is douchebag central!

whole foods is the epicenter of douchiness.

Whole Foods is douchey for a good cause - or so they claim.

i mean the customers there

I am with you, brother.

I'm not going to bore you with my descriptions of Whole Foods customers and their utter inability to shop like normal human beings.
That place is douchebag central!

They are too preoccupied with cruising for what will end up as the subject of a craigslist "Missed Connections" ad the following day to be able to concentrate on shopping.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/17/yale-student-artificially_n_97194.html

Wow. That makes no sense to me, but also the ads around the article created a disturbing image layout vis a vis the content of the article.

I forgot to take my shopping tote bag with me today for after-work grocery shopping. So I grabbed a few things and used a paper bag to carry them. Right after my purchase, the older gentleman behind me in line looked at me, turned around, shook his head slowly, and proceeded to tell the cashier in a sad and solemn voice "GOTTA stop with the disposable bags, ay. ess. ay. pee."

You would think this would anger me or arm me for an ensuing snarkocaust (hat tip: nate), but no, that is not true!

That guy is right. He was totally douchey -- but, you know, for a GOOD CAUSE.

I was thinking: it's easy for even the most selfless people in the world to become douchey in no time. So here's my proposal.

Be douchey to someone or something -- for a GOOD CAUSE.

If that guy had said that to me, I would have went to a store that uses plastic bags and made a point to use as many as possible. I would ruin the planet out of spite.

If he cared that much, he should have bought Mackro a reuseable purple bag right then and there.

I think the internal seething is woefully under represented here.
How angry are you, every day? I'm pissed off pretty much when I leave my home.
But that's because I drive, a lot.

Jaq FTW.

haha Tombot, this is the first time this has ever happened to me here. There are doucheys in every city. Seattle isn't filled with guys like these. That said, he was in full biking gear, if that fuels any other prejudices on ILX.

HOOS, yes, this was obviously a joke, but there is a point to be made in there, somewhere. I think.

I forgot that some of this is concerning PCC -
I always liked singing a little jingle in my head when I shopped there.
"Ya down with PCC?
Yeah you know me!
Who's down with PCC?
The whole party!"

PCC = Peopyls Communist Co-Op, amirite?

Is PCC douchey for a good cause?

PCC is certified 100% douchefree

Well, to be fair, they do sell reusable douches.

Yet another thing that I am feeling weird about!

Don't even link to a whole bunch of reusable douche pics. Don't.

OK, go ahead.

That article - about the Yale student and her ART - is, like, one of the most disturbing things I have ever read.

I think there needs to be an entire thread about it.

Has Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me) found Osama Bin Laden?!