Canadian Guilt

Asian Grocery Store
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

As a New Yorker, I had enough to worry about just going to the store. You know, being able to safely get back from the store was just as important. I know everyone talks about crime in Metropolis, but while it isn't rampant, there is something to be said about it.

But now crime isn't a huge worry--there seems to be very little of it here, maybe a random duck snatching or two, a red light jumper, and maybe a stray snowball hitting a car window; that's about the gist of it. Now I have to be concerned with a far more important and personal matter and that, of course, is Canadian guilt.

What is Canadian guilt? Simple. It's the guilt you feel when you don't bring your own shopping bag to Loblaw's or Walmart and have to use one of their plastic jobbies to carry your stuff.

And boy, do I have stuff. Thing is, I have reached a point, (call it my going green phase), where I refuse to use one of their plastic bags for my groceries, even when I forget my cloth bag in the trunk of my car. The other day, I had to carry a bag of milk (yes, they come in these four little bags, which are then placed in a larger bag (plastic, I might add), a bunch of bananas, a box of cereal, two cans of No Name soup (that's the name, "No Name," I swear), sponges, and my 30-in-a-box No Name ice pops that I've become hopelessly addicted to, and then the woman at the register asks, "Will you need a bag with that?"

So I pretend that I always carry a bunch of stuff on my arms, pockets, and down the front of my pants to take them out to the car, because I want to look cool, and don't want to be thought of as a "waster".

Let me tell you something--ice pops down the front of your pants are damn cold.