Tuesday 26 February 2008

Bag snobbery

I am showing tendencies of developing a honed sense of BBS (British Bag Snobbery).

Let me explain.

Early in 2006, I noticed a culturally comic item in British society. Because people actually walk in this country, there is the need to carry more than perhaps only a credit card and a tube of lipstick. Therefore, a cute tiny purse just doesn't cut it. And a backpack just shows a little too much trekking attitude.

So, even if you don't carry a backpack, you still need a bag for all your stuff (if it is from a shop, it is called a 'carrier bag', funnily enough. Although, really, why do you need the adjective? Would you get confused and try to make a sail out of it -- a 'sailor bag'? Or make a hat out of it -- a 'hatter bag'? But I digress; this is a mockery for another day.). Of course, people do carry non-plastic bags as well; I suppose these are just called 'bags'. I carry stuff in a non-plastic bag. Stuff you might carry in your 'carrier bag' include: lunch, your work shoes, your knitting, a scarf, hat and gloves. You might even like a large enough one to put your stupid purse/handbag in, which holds your single credit card and lipstick because you are too vain to not carry it.

However, many British people do try to show how posh they are by the type of carrier bag that they carry. People carrying a Harrod's green plastic bag in Cardiff or Norwich have not just come from buying some incredibly rare snail-crossed-with-quail eggs. They are not transporting a Waterford mustard pot to go with the products they just purchased at Ye Olde Colman's Mustarde Shoppe. They are, in fact, indulging their overdeveloped ego of British Bag Superiority. And they look pityingly sideways upon all the cretins hurrying by with their mere Jones Bootmaker bags or cloth Body Shop bags (which show that you care for the environment) or (heavens preserve us!) the dreaded Primark bag. (Note: Primark is kind of like a cheaper and chavvier version of T.J. Maxx -- or as they like to call it in this country T.K. Maxx. I do LOVE me some Maxx!)

Well, I carry my shopping bags (which are not plastic -- I try not to use or keep those pestilences in the house because they breed when you aren't paying attention) because I like my jute shopping bags. They are mostly from Sainsbury's (because the ones from Tesco with only a few ladybugs are not as cute as the old ones.). But there are a couple which appeal to my embryonic sense of Faux-British Bag Snobbery -- e.g., my one from the Cardiff Riverside Real Food Market and the one from the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, where my dearest Lindsey Cousine took me for brekafast close to Tarrytown, NY. These indicate me to passersby as a (slight hypocrite though my inconsistency makes me) semi-regular organic and Fairtrade food consumer.

On the way home this evening, during a shopping dash into The Green Grocers, which is the best place to be sanctimonious about buying organic in Norwich, I almost caved and bought the tiniest jute carrier bag you have ever seen that does not have a get-well plant in it. All 8-inches square of it cost £1.99 (that is pretty damn close to $4.00USD. And that, my friends, is both absurd and foolish.)!

But it was pink.

And it did have their logo emblazened on it.

And this would have allowed me to look lazily askance at the cretins in Sainsbury's whilst packing up my fresh fruit and veg, as if to say, 'Well, reeeeaally, I am not accustomed to eating this food for the plebian masses. I only just popped in here because I didn't want to contaminate the planet by spewing carbon from transport just for my selfish needs.'

However, it occurs to me that pride is one of the Seven Deadly. So, it is really for the best that the bag was left today (it is Lent, you know, you bunch of heathens). However, in a moment of weakness, I worry that the spirit may cave in -- because really you wouldn't want to put your organic, free-range eggs in a big old ungainly jute bag with 8 bananas, 4 cans of soup and 3 litres of milk... now would you? And... it is pink!

2 comments:

Kate said...

Oh, Anne-Marie, How I miss you. I was in a Bloomingdale's recently, and you know they now sell reusable versions of their big brown bag and their small brown bag and their medium brown bag. I had to try very hard not to purchase one. (For toting all the stuff that I need at work...like water and snacks and such...back and forth.) I applaud your strength, especially when faced with something pink!!!

Susan said...

Oh damn, if it was pink I would have caved and bought it. At present I am carrying my knitting in a see through (bragging) bag emblazioned with the Seagrams logo. (Canadian whiskey of the first quarter - Crown Royal), which sends the message, "oh look, she is a knitter" or " she doesn't belong to the Temperance Union"..lolol