the evolution of grocery haute couture...
This morning on my way to work, I noticed something. It came to my attention as I was sitting on the platform of track 1, waiting to catch the GO train that would sweep me back into the city after a wonderful weekend away.
No one carries anything to work/school in grocery bags anymore.
When I was young and 'too cool for school' as they say, I wouldn't take my lunch or gym shoes to school in anything less than a backpack/lunchbag combo. Bringing lunch in a plastic bag was asking to be relegated to the grouping of desks with the other Untouchables in the classroom caste system. I wasn't Miss Popularity by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn't about to lose that rung, somewhere in the middle of the social ladder, that I clung to...anywhere but down!
When highschool hit, almost without warning, lunchbags were out. A lunchbag signified everything that was inconsequential and juvenile in the world, and we were soooo much more than that. In acts of Avril-like rebellion we all embraced the grocery bag en masse, to signal our individuality - yes, the logic works like that. All of a sudden your turkey-on-rye and grannysmiths were being thrown around and manhandled inside the unpadded confines of the latest offerings from IGA, A&P, or Loblaws. "I sooooooo don't care what my food goes in, like, I just end up eating it anyway!"
University ushered in the age of the caf and other such waistline-expanding on-campus eateries. Grocery bags served primarily to schlep those extra few items you couldn't cram into your backpack at John's Deli back to your lopsided student house. After fulfilling this purpose, they were good for empties, trashcan liners, and tying up the tupperware you had to throw out b/c you couldn't remember what was in it anymore.
Now, in the working world, people have come full circle. Everyone has reverted to seventh grade, with richer taste. Instead of paper, canvas or (if you were lucky) some sort of Thermocool number, everyone is toting labels. At first glance this morning, it was just one man walking by with his briefcase and an Armani Exchange logo with handles swinging by his side....then a woman with a bag from Davids, and when I looked around it was almost everyone. On the train, in the subway, at the lights, everywhere I looked there were men and women with company names flying freely from elbows and hands; slung over shoulders and clipped to other bags.
This is the age at which carrying grocery bags becomes uncool all over again. People are watching to see where you'll put the spillover from your briefcase or purse. On one hand, I can see why people make the switch: the plastic is translucent at times; it's malleable and there is no hiding whatever it is you've got inside. Your secrets jab out at awkward angles. Whatever structure there is is lost when things get too heavy, and sometimes you need more than one to do the job....
...but on second thought, more so than wishing everyone luck in finding the right label to match their self-consciousness, I hope that we all become a little bit more like grocery-bag people...I have a feeling it would make carrying a lot of life's loads a little easier....
Cas
No one carries anything to work/school in grocery bags anymore.
When I was young and 'too cool for school' as they say, I wouldn't take my lunch or gym shoes to school in anything less than a backpack/lunchbag combo. Bringing lunch in a plastic bag was asking to be relegated to the grouping of desks with the other Untouchables in the classroom caste system. I wasn't Miss Popularity by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn't about to lose that rung, somewhere in the middle of the social ladder, that I clung to...anywhere but down!
When highschool hit, almost without warning, lunchbags were out. A lunchbag signified everything that was inconsequential and juvenile in the world, and we were soooo much more than that. In acts of Avril-like rebellion we all embraced the grocery bag en masse, to signal our individuality - yes, the logic works like that. All of a sudden your turkey-on-rye and grannysmiths were being thrown around and manhandled inside the unpadded confines of the latest offerings from IGA, A&P, or Loblaws. "I sooooooo don't care what my food goes in, like, I just end up eating it anyway!"
University ushered in the age of the caf and other such waistline-expanding on-campus eateries. Grocery bags served primarily to schlep those extra few items you couldn't cram into your backpack at John's Deli back to your lopsided student house. After fulfilling this purpose, they were good for empties, trashcan liners, and tying up the tupperware you had to throw out b/c you couldn't remember what was in it anymore.
Now, in the working world, people have come full circle. Everyone has reverted to seventh grade, with richer taste. Instead of paper, canvas or (if you were lucky) some sort of Thermocool number, everyone is toting labels. At first glance this morning, it was just one man walking by with his briefcase and an Armani Exchange logo with handles swinging by his side....then a woman with a bag from Davids, and when I looked around it was almost everyone. On the train, in the subway, at the lights, everywhere I looked there were men and women with company names flying freely from elbows and hands; slung over shoulders and clipped to other bags.
This is the age at which carrying grocery bags becomes uncool all over again. People are watching to see where you'll put the spillover from your briefcase or purse. On one hand, I can see why people make the switch: the plastic is translucent at times; it's malleable and there is no hiding whatever it is you've got inside. Your secrets jab out at awkward angles. Whatever structure there is is lost when things get too heavy, and sometimes you need more than one to do the job....
...but on second thought, more so than wishing everyone luck in finding the right label to match their self-consciousness, I hope that we all become a little bit more like grocery-bag people...I have a feeling it would make carrying a lot of life's loads a little easier....
Cas
posted by A Horse(wo)man at 10:38 AM
1 Comments:
"Your secrets jab out at awkward angles."
what a line cazz, what a line!
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