On our first trip to the grocery, we forgot our reusable bags (which I brought from hom in lieu of an extra shirt or two, because we really do use them that often and they are that important to us). No bother.
Everything was double-bagged, and they didn't fill them any too full. My jar of peanut butter was put in a peanut-butter-jar sized plastic bag, then put in the larger bag. A tiny one-serving packet of chocolate candy was put in a one-serving-packet sized plastic bag, then put in the larger bag.
We were laughing about this excessive use of plastic bags when our friends told us that when you do bring your own bags, items will be tagged and signed by the clerk, then the tags will be removed at the door by the guard -- who is close enough to see you purchasing the items to begin with.
Tags and tickets are pretty popular, too. I went to the bathroom at a market, and it cost 25 cents (not unusual for public bathrooms outside of the US, though I may have mentioned in long-ago posts that I rarely use them because I find it hard to support the pay-to-pee idea). I gave the woman my quarter, and she tore off a little ticket for me. For such a suspicious operation (if I had beat her there that morning, I might have been able to charge 25 cents for each use of the bathroom), I was surprised to have such an official looking ticket. I thought I might have to give this ticket to someone inside the bathroom door (which was wide open and about five feet away), but there was no one in there. I held onto it, thinking I might have to turn it back in to her when I was finished, but no.
It felt weird to throw it away. I ended up holding on to it for the whole day: a few more minutes in my hand, then it went into my purse. I finally tossed it when we got home -- into the plastic bag now serving as our garbage can.
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