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The Scorn of The Conscientious Class

I'm smiling politely at the Trader Joe's checker, who has just recounted to her colleague that they got a "bad batch of bags." I require the paper bags today because I forgot our reusable ones. Because I came almost straight from daycare. Because I've been out of town for a week and returned home to a bare fridge. And because I use the paper bags--to collect my recycling.

Yet these are perilously flawed. One good tug, one corner caught on a door handle, and my oatmeal would have been covered in egg.

Nice catch, checker. You do the Joe proud. I am happy to be shopping here with my two year-old daughter on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in April.

I am not happy with the smarmy-smug commentary coming from behind me:

"All the more reason people should bring their own."

Whuck?

The guy behind me in line has just answered my noble checker's act of collegiality with a kick to the human shin. I turn to look at my accuser. He's tall, young, and has a perfectly crafted hairdo resting atop his chiseled-jaw-and-high-cheekbone head. He is positively Grecian. He's beautiful. I hate him.

If I am to be fingered as an environmental menace at the local crunchy grocery chain, must it be by such a specimen of mainstream success? Could I not be accosted by the 75 year-0ld retiree with his cans of soup and cat food? Where, on this judgment day, is the patchouli-scented protester with her mattes of unwashed hair?

And he smiles. He grins at me (I hate you I hate you I hate you!) as if the two of us are sharing a condemnation of a third party, THAT guy, who we both know is going home to take a 57 minute shower with every light on in the house. But we're not.

I'm the guilty party here. Bad citizen. Bad dad. Bad hair.

I stop at 7-11 on the way home, just so I can buy a pack of cigarettes, smoke one in the car, and toss the butt out the window. If the scorn of the conscientious class is to be my diet, let me first work up an appetite.

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