BAG LADY

I am not a saver. Nor, am I a dedicated recycler.  Please don't tell my mom!  Really I don't save too many things.  I have tried my hand at using those recyclable, save-the-earth sort of bags that the earthen crowd utilize diligently at the grocery store.  You know the kind that you bring from home.  Most of the time my intentions are good, but my memory to remember them from the car or the house when in the check out line are horrible.  I really made a concerted effort to use the save-the-earth bags when, after a trip to Hawaii, I learned there was a mile long stretch in the ocean of plastic bags.  It is killing sea life - dolphins, sea lions, amoeba, swells of minnows, and ocean perch.  One would think that would have solidified my resolve to "go green" in carrying my groceries at the very least.  My mom saves most everything.  Growing up the dish rack, the clothes rack and the space on the floor in front of the heat vent just off the kitchen was strewn with freshly washed and drying ziplock and bread bags.  She was preparing their weathered plasticness for yet another use to come.  I never really felt they got totally dry inside.  On any given day if you go to my mom's house you can find enough store plastic grocery bags to add yet another mile to the grocery bag flotilla off the Hawaiian coast.  I don't ever wash a ziplock or bread bag.  And I mean ever.  Does my waste bother me?  Maybe it should, as I come from a long line of relatives who wash bags, save bits of aluminum foil along with used tea bags.  I, on the other hand feel grateful to live in a place where a person can buy 30 one-gallon ziplock bags for $2.89.  That equates to less than .10 cents a piece.  My grandfather (my bag washing mother's dad) made my mom, me and my two sisters bag drying wood tulips perched boldly and colorfully on this wooden circle.  The color of the paint was like what you see on a clearance paint rack at Lowe's where the wrong color was mixed.  I never used mine.  My mom uses hers constantly.  Side note; she also washes the red plastic cups designed to be used and thrown away.  Not me.