Pirate
 

I love feeling like a pirate when I commute by bike.

Yes, I am beating the system. No, I don't have to use an expensive, gas-guzzling, pocketbook-busting, enslaving, wasteful car to get to work.

I am a pirate, stealing back my freedom, and I love it.

(And check out my heartbeat...)

Does your bike fly a Jolly Roger? ...or do you steal incognito?

Arrr! Where's me eyepatch, matey?

We be thieves, the lot of us!

Can't help it! I feel like I'm getting something for nothing! Is that "un-American?"

(The guilt is unbearable. This week, I will go out and buy some gas, just to contribute a little back for what I owe...)

I do my part to make amends by saying "Plastic" in response to the supermarket check-out query. I think the plastic's made from petroleum. Anyway I know paper isn't.

'Tis honor among us thieves, though, Petey, me boy!

Yes, JonR, plastic is made from petroleum. Ironically, my father, who spent his working career as a petroleum engineer for an oil company, is appalled by the proliferation of throwaway plastic packaging. He considers it a terrible waste of a precious resource by our convenience-oriented society. He almost always asks for paper bags.

Yes, but then I use those plastic bags to aid my commute. I carry my work clothes in them. I wrap my lunch in them. I carry some as emergency rain booties. I also use them as trash bags around the house. The damn things are so useful and re-usable that I actually feel virtuous asking for them at the checkout.

I do occasionally ask for paper to bundle newspapers in for recycling, though.

RichC

Whether we waste oil or trees for bags, seems a moot issue. It's still a waste.

Look at it this way: plastic bags might play a key role in future archeological research.

We do want future generations to remember us, don't we?

Anyway, I'm guilty. I use them to keep things dry in my sweaty backpack, matey! BUT--I'm REUSING THEM!

:D

Most people probably save them to reuse. When I've accumulated a large bag full I donate them to the Salvation Army store. They use them to wrap clothes, dishes ...whatever. What happens to them after that, I don't know. They are probably pirated away in a stealthly manner on the back of someones bicycle.

I work at a small-town library, and we collect used bags because people are always asking for a bag to carry their books and/or videos. If you've got plastic bags piling up and you are near a small library, you might want to ask if they have any use for them....