When a bag, or lack thereof, is more than just a bag

As I approached the check-out lane, realizing I would be waiting at least five minutes due to my place in line behind customers who were buying all their food for the week, it dawned on me that I did not have a bag. In France, it is obligatory that you bring your own bag to take home your groceries, or you must purchase various size and style bags from the retailer as a punishment for your forgetful- or unprepared-ness.

Being I stopped into Ed just to purchase a few snacks (Ed being one of many discount retail grocery chains that have infiltrated my otherwise small, quaint French city; quaint, minus the recent bout of riots), I opted to practice my ambidextrous abilities and carry my purchases home without a bag.

As I leave the store, I see some students from school, we exchange pleasantries, and continue on our separate ways. It is then that I have an epiphany.

Maybe the whole concept behind bringing your own bag, is more than just an environmental effort to reduce consumption and waste. Just maybe, in their ingenuity, the French also realized that this procedure would also force consumers, those who forget to bring along a reusable sack or those unwilling to purchase one, to have to face consequences of public exposure for their purchases.

Being that I was walking a few blocks to my apartment on one of the main routes into downtown, I had the pleasure of exposing my very American purchases to the people of St. Dizier. With 3 liters of Pepsi Max and my chocolate pound cake, I am pretty sure I stuck out as un-French.

Maybe the only other item that would have been more of a tip-off would have been a loaf of sliced bread to accompany my very Americanized snacks.

With a smirk of embarrassment, I trudged home while enjoying meeting more students along the way.

And thus, I hope to be on track to remembering my re-enforced, re-usable bag in the future, otherwise, I will be doomed to face the consequences of my actions once again. And so, I have learned a lesson in the benefits of public exposure 101.