Some people just shouldn’t use the U-scan.

• Posted on July 28, 2008 at 7:08 pm

I am looking at you, two people who stood at their U-scan while a line seven people deep was waiting to check out, you whose U-scan-using procedure went something like this:

1. Scan one item
2. Tell lengthy anecdote about relative to companion
3. Put item in bag
4. Listen to lengthy anecdote told by companion in response to your lengthy anecdote
5. Scan another item
6. Repeat steps 2 through 4 several times
7. Look up and notice “15 items or less” sign
8. Look at your basket of approximately 10000000000000 items
9. Giggle, go “Oops!” and laugh at people behind you
10. Repeat steps 1-4 until done or world ends or mob of people waiting for you to get the hell off the U-scan rises up and runs you out of the store on a rail, whichever comes first

One of the other three U-scans was taken up by a person who kept disputing every single price on every single item she scanned. Another U-scan kept going “OMG PROBLEM, PLZ WAIT FOR EMPLOYEE LOL” at its poor user every time she scanned an item (I don’t blame the poor lady for this one).

Those first two? They were still there after I had scanned my armful of items, paid for them, unzipped my reusable-shopping-bags-what-fold-and-zip-into-wee-squares, and stuffed all my shit into them.

Yeah, I’m finally on the reusable shopping bag train. Not so much out of OMG LUV 4 TEH EARTH as for practical reasons (grocery loads don’t always fit in my backpack, especially if I’m hauling the laptop that day, and reusable bags hold up a lot better when dangling from my handlebars). I have a few canvas ones, but I hadn’t used them much. Hauling them around and pausing to remove them from my backpack was kind of a pain.

So yesterday I went to Target, because they have some neat snacks and things the normal grocery store does not, and I realized halfway there that I had forgotten to roll up my big canvas shopping backpack and bungee-cord it to my package carrier. Crap. Oh well, I thought, I’d just buy a cheap tote bag or backpack or something if it came to that.

Well, right inside the door, there were reusable shopping bags. $1 each. The traditional kind, and these neat fold-and-zip ones. I just about swooned. Oh, convenient fold-and-zip reusable shopping bags, where have you been all my life?

I got a handful of them. Now they stay in the little side pockets on my backpack, so I can whip them right out and unzip them and shove shit in them as needed. Several of them could also easily be stuffed into my purse.

I also went to the Toys R’ Us next door to the Target and found this.

This was exactly what I didn’t know I wanted. In a nutshell: it is a cookbook that deals with using silicone cupcake cups to cook things. All kinds of things. From cupcakes to eggs to little mini-lasagnas to rice to quiche. Yes, it’s sold as a kids’ book, but how perfect is that for us bento-packers? So I decided I might like to try making some scalloped potatoes in a cup. Slightly different recipe from the book, but same general procedure.

Well, I got organic half-n-half and ham and cheddar and asiago and garlic. Notice what is not on that list. >_<

Oh well. I didn’t need to make them for lunch tomorrow, as I still have half of the chicken lo mein I got today in the fridge. I am going to bake up some pasta, though. Or maybe make a ham-n-cheese noodle bake or something. nom.

Finally, there is a tiny update over in 100 Candles-land: a new splash and a new preview.

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