Confessions of a Demented Bag Packer

On any given day, I am not very good at packing groceries. If truth be told, I often completely bypass the entire bag packing thing altogether in favour of simply chucking my shopping from the conveyor belt thingy back into the trolley, sans bags.

Not out of pure laziness you understand (although that may come into it). It's just that I somehow nearly always forget to bring my sturdy reusable bags with me - a shame as I now have so many I could happily sell them and make a tidy profit.

If I do remember bags, I'm one of those people who simply stuff everything in wily nily. I admit it, I have no system - a failing considered a very serious offence by right-minded housekeepers who know their raw meats from their honey roasted turkey slices.

I know, deep down that I should separate the frozen goods from the dairy etc etc. so that it's all far more efficient when it comes to unpacking at the other end, but there is something (I suspect it's hardwired in my DNA) which always prevents me from pulling off such a feat of organisational supremacy.

Bearing all this in mind then, being asked to pack groceries in my local supermarket for a Very Good Cause was not something I was looking forward to.

Bloggers, I was dreading it, and with very good reason as it turns out because to say I was appalling doesn't even come close.

Trouble was, besides the fact that my butter fingers became even more buttery than usual, I also talked too much and paid too little attention to what I was doing.
Thus a packet of firelighters somehow became wedged in with fruit - cue gasps from righteous housekeepers everywhere. Not content with committing the cardinal sin of good bag packing, I also perpetrated possibly the worst abomination of all: I dropped a chicken on the floor. In my defence, I still think the poor anemic bird might have been making a last, doomed break for freedom.

So, next year, when someone mentions bag packing for charity I'm going to make a suggestion: nude calendar anyone? It's bound to be less painful. And that chicken could come in very handy to hide behind if I place it just so......