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September 01, 2001

Bags of fun

Good grief. The staff who work weekdays in the Cafe Danmark near my office are actually pretty used to me and my odd foreign ways by now. Standard practice when a customer orders a cappuccino and sandwich is to put the coffee cup in a paper bag, sellotape it shut, put the sandwich in another paper bag, seal that shut, and then put both into a third, plastic bag which has handles (ooh!) for easy toting by said customer.

Now I'm not a raving conservationist or anything, but this strikes me as rather a waste. Japan's pretty bad at this kind of thing - environmental concerns don't seem to register terribly prominently on the nations's collective mental radar.

So I'm always trying to get shop assistants to refrain from excessively wrapping things for me. I prefer just to carry the coffee in one hand, and the sandwich bag in the other. My opposable thumbs are the result of millions of years of evolution - it seems a shame not to try using them for things other than PlayStation2 gaming occasionally.

The weekday cafe staff, as I said, are quite used to this eccentricity by now. The only reason I mention it is because today it's Saturday: Different Staff Day. Different staff who tried to wrap the coffee up in a clear thin plastic bag(1), then in a paper bag(2). Then I'm pretty sure they were going to try to put that into the large plastic bag(4), along with the paper bag(3) containing the (already individually wrapped) sandwich.

Thankfully I spotted the wrapper-upper trying to secure the thin clear bag(1), and politely intervened as she was attempting to manoeuver it into the paper bag(2). One cappuccino successfully rescued, two bags unwasted. Then I had to intercept the second member of staff doing the sandwich, although I couldn't quite get to her in time. She presented me the plastic bag(4) containing the sandwich's paper bag(3) so, with a polite "I don't need the plastic one, thanks" I just took hold of the paper bag(3) and tried to lift it out of the plastic bag(4). She was obviously a little confused by this, as evidenced by her unwillingness to actually help remove the plastic bag(4), instead continuing to proffer it higher and higher as I tried to extract the paper bag(3) from it. I was taller, though, so eventally I won.

The day's final score: three bags unwasted, and two more Japanese sandwich makers bemused by a weirdo foreigner. Now if I could just get the MOS Burger staff to stop giving me eight napkins every time I buy a single chicken burger, we might actually start getting somewhere...

Posted by chris at September 1, 2001 05:24 PM | Permalink

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