Trying to win the battle

For three long days I was surrounded by a hoard of enemies. They were everywhere I looked. Whenever I thought I had vanquished a few of them, more would appear. It was like a bad video game that I was losing only it was real.
The squat creations mocked my attempts to lower their numbers. I hate them and the feeling is quite mutual. Unfortunately, my mother loves them as much as I despise them. She collects them. She reuses them for every imaginable purpose. They are her friends, keeping her many skeins of yarn and other assorted possessions dust free.
Yes, I am talking about that odious and ubiquitous invention — the plastic bag.
I suppose I am showing my age when I pine for purchases to be wrapped in filmy paper before being slipped into a sturdy paper bag emblazoned with the store’s logo. There used to be no question of paper or plastic. The only question at the grocery store was paper bags or leftover produce box? No other store gave you a choice.
Plastic bags came into being in the 1950’s. They stayed quietly in the background until sometime in the 1970’s. In the midst of peace demonstrations and the beginnings of the environmental movement they began to multiply.
Then in the 1980’s the petroleum-based sacks started to make their move for world domination. They partnered with that other irritating invention — the safety seal — in an effort to drive me nuts. I maintain that safety seals do nothing to ensure product safety. Their sole purpose is to be a source of irritation. They succeed admirably at this.
But back to plastic bags. I can’t seem to find an accurate estimate of how many plastic bags are used per year. The estimates range from 500 billion per year up to 1 trillion.
Maybe I should invest in the plastic bag industry. Even if the lower estimate is off by half or more, that is still a lot of plastic bags. My mother has at least a fourth of that number squirreled away.
My mom likes the bags for many of the same reasons that I don’t. They don’t hold very much weight; a plus for her and a minus for me. They multiply worse than coat hangers. Again, a plus for her as she will never run out and a minus for me as there are far too many of them to suit me. I could go on but you get the idea.
I do have to concede that in a landfill, a paper bag takes up more room than a plastic one. Also, the plastic bags don’t tear as easily as the paper ones. Whenever I am foolish enough to shop without bringing my reusable cloth bags the handles of the plastic bags do their best to cut into the palms of my hands. This merely fuels my dislike of the creatures; I mean creations.
Nevertheless, for three days I whittled my mother’s collection down to a more manageable number. I cleaned her house for her as she had finally been released from the hospital after a heart attack. All I ask is that she heals. I am perfectly capable of cleaning her house. It is the least I can do for her.
I combined the contents of several bags of yarn into one and tossed the empty bags into the trash.  I went to the grocery store for her and brought home even more plastic bags to replace the ones I had thrown out. In my worry about her health, I had forgotten to bring the cloth bags. It did not matter.
For three days I looked after her and tossed out her plastic bags. It was a traumatic time for all of us. I may have won a battle or two, but I think the plastic bags won the war.[[In-content Ad]]