12mo ago

Why is this so hard

118 comments

Just buy reusable mesh bags and stop wasting plastic to protect your produce for a 20 minute car ride.
- There's no way I'm getting to my car when opening a bag is this hard
  
  "Joke about the inability to open a car because the inability to open a little bag"
  ;-)
- "just put the fruit in the cart" gang represent
  
  Right? Just gonna wash it anyway
  
  Just dump all the loose blueberries into it.
  
  You're a savage, go back to the forest.
- We still reuse the plastic bags around here... so, not a total waste I guess.
- The "waste" is negligible; doing some napkin math, a 20 minute car ride accounts for 300 times higher carbon footprint than a plastic produce bag (can elaborate if you want). A reused mesh bag is going to be less hygienic and less convenient, and factoring in the higher footprint of production and distribution (produce bags come in packs of thousands) you would need to get a lot of reuse out of it to even be worth it. Considering impact of disposal, as long as you live somewhere that has sane waste disposal and doesn't empty their trash into the ocean it's not going to be significant either.
  
  People need to get some perspective on plastic waste. I've seen no end of complaints about how my 3d printing hobby is responsible for climate change... In my country, we produce >200 kg of plastic per capita. My 1kg spool of vegetable-derived plastic is not to blame for passing 3°.
  
  It's less about the carbon and more about the fact that it doesn't degrade. It's plastic pollution.
  
  everything that helps helps
- Not all of those bags are the same.
  The produce bag rolls at most stores around me are compostable now. They are also breathable and will keep the produce fresh longer when left in the bag.
  
  Compostable means they can be recycled, which isn't as good as reusing, which isn't as good as reducing.
  Reduce>Reuse>Recycle
- Best part is I can carry 2-3 fully loaded reusable bags vs 12 flimsy plastic ones that split and overflow.
- in sweden we have paper bags that are then used for food waste recycling at home.

Produce Manager here. Place the end that opens directly between your two palms, and rub your palms together vigorously. The bag will stick to one palm or both, opening every time. Please stop licking your fingers to open these bags and then picking through our vegetables. You're gross.
- Vegetable Farmer here. That shit is already gross. Wash your veggies.
  
  Produce Manager here. Thanks for all of the gross vegetables!
- A breath of hot air also makes the bag stick to your hands and easy to separate. Like you're trying to fog a window.
- I knew there will be a comment like this.

All you do is put the top between the palms of your hands and rub them together like you've just come up with an evil plan and they pop open.
- bonus points if you actually come up with an evil plan while you're doing it

simply use the moisture from the sprayers
- I've touched sprayed produce before just for the grip. 🥴

At least the bags say "OPEN HERE". We'd be fucked if they said "OPEN IN ZIMBABWE" or something like that.
- Not sure, I might have just figured out Steven Wright's Lemmy account.
  
  Excuse me? That was a George Carlin joke I stole.

I'll try for five minutes and find out it opens on the other end.
- I do this with dog poop bags, it's so frustrating!
  
  I use ones that are explicitly labelled with a black strip. My tactic for opening them is to put them between my lips and blow, which works pretty well but got really weird during the mandatory masking periods.
- The best days are when you successfully open one .... and realize it wasn't sealed at the bottom either

As a person with eternally sweaty palms, this right here is my superpower. (⁠⌐⁠■⁠-⁠■⁠)

If you listen closely you can hear him whisper words of wisdom such as: "I've tried both ends five times now!", "I think this one must be defective!", or my personal favorite "I don't think these are the same brand they had out last week!"
- Sounds like me plugging in a USB stick.
  
  USB plugs are actually a great at-home demonstration of quantum mechanics. The USB plug exists in a quantum superposition of alignment - being simultaneously correctly aligned and not aligned until being inserted. Once insertion is attempted, the wave function collapses to a random alignment.
- Damn... I thought I was the only one that noticed they switched the plastic bag brand.
  
  They usually have the good green ones, but then sometimes they have the clear ones that are harder to open

I go to the broccolis and touch the usually wet crate first.

Highlight of my life was shortly after I broke my arm, someone saw me struggling with one of these one-handed and opened it for me like the damn lockpicking lawyer. I've considered taking my sling with me shopping ever since, in case I need another good Samaritan to open one of these godforsaken bags again

It takes three times longer to open a dog poop bag when you are out in the cold and can't even feel your damn finger tips.
- I make my dog help since he's a habitual licker

Just lick your fingers first! The grocery store sells food products, it and its patrons have to be hygienic …
/s

I just wave it around frantically until the wind opens it.
- This doesn't usually work 😂. Tried it a few times 😂.

Breath on your fingers like you're trying to fog up glass. Immediately open by running your fingers in opposite directions along the edge, using the additional friction you created.
- Instructions unclear, bag is stuck in my glasses
- Please don't breathe your germs onto my vegetables
  
  Keep my vegetables out your fucking mouth.
  
  Well I hope you're going to wash them anyway. There's already a bunch more worse shit than a bit of breath condensation from a guy standing a few feet away breathing onto his hands.

Crumple it into a ball and straighten it again. Then put it between your flat hands and rub them against each other.
The small wrinkles from crumpling break cohesion between the layers, and the friction from rubbing separates them.
- Burn the witch!

I have dry hands, these are my nemesis
- I heavily heavily sympathetize. I can't get the damn things open. I bought the reusable mesh bags because it is far less frustrating to use. Except when I forget to bring them...

I just tap the tips of my finger and thumb to my tongue for a bit of moisture and then they open right up.
- This is what I always did before covid but now I don't anymore.
  
  Me too! Back when we thought COVID could spread easily from surface contact, I found myself at the grocery trying to decide WTF I was going to do.
  "Uh, dare I stick my fingers under the mask, or, what?"
- But at that point I’ve already wandered the whole store and have touched any number of things that could have been manhandled by all the other finger-licking, unmasked hand-sneezing, butt-scratching, non-hand-washing straw men in the grocery store. One of those dudes is a septic tank cleaner, and he doesn’t wear gloves because he says he’s allergic! And soap burns when it gets into all the oozing sores on his hands.
  There’s no way I’m licking my fingers until I’ve washed them or at least forgotten about my pus-leaking, poop-handed caricature!
  
  Do you really think that way or are you just making a joke? Seems we humans went from making fun of Semmelweis to absolute germaphobes. Does no one get biology education anymore? Or is it more a failure to examine risk realistically? Freaks me out how fearful people are now days.
  Always washed my hands regularly. Even as a toddler, I remember getting sticky ice cream on my hands and hating it. But I'm not manic about it, don't give a shit worrying about bacteria/viruses/fungi/prions/whatever. (Unless I've been into something obviously rotten. Ask me about the fungus I found at camp today. Not touching that with a 10' frog.)
  Only time I really think about what I'm doing is after shooting or gunsmithing. Lots of nasty shit, above and beyond lead, you don't want to ingest. Because heavy metals are for life. Bacteria? I'll quote the removed from the pandemic, "i HaVe aN IMMunE sYsteM!"
  LOVE your writing BTW! I should trawl your comments. (NM, just did. You're smart and express yourself perfectly. We should be friends. Your damned skin cancer post got me thinking about the tiny spot under my pec. Not sure it's healing, but at least it's smaller and not blackish any longer.)
- Yep, works like a charm 👍. Not really hygenic, especially of you're doing the shopping right after work, but hey, if it works, I'll take it 🤷.
  
  Should probably mention I pick up the fruits and veggies with the bag like picking up dog doo, so I'm not licking my fingers and then touching food on the shelf. It shouldn't be an issue of licking dirty hands after work; you can wash them in a bathroom either coming into the store or before leaving your jobsite.

Put the opening "line" between your big hands and rub it; both hands goes along the "opening line", one hand moves one way, the other hand the other way for say some centimetres or an inch or two, change direction, repeat.
- Sometimes works, sometimes I'm rubbing away like a boy scout trying to get his fire starter merit badge

Moses parted the sea faster than I separate the bag at the store

One of the best life tips I've ever gotten was from some random stranger as I desperately struggled with one of these things: Most times if you slide one edge up and one edge down it pops right open even with super dry skin. Not sure why this works when sliding the halves sideways does not but it dies!
- You can do this between your fingers as well. Just use a motion like you are snapping your fingers just more gentle.

You just rub both ends at the same time.
- That's what I tell her...

Those bags are almost useless, just throw the vegetables directly in your grocery bag at checkout. It's nice to take one to isolate chicken from the rest, or to put on your bike seat for rainy days, but definitely not useful for veggies.
- I don't want my veggies touching the cart. Some dude who fingers his butthole while wiping used it before me.
  He didn't wash his hands.
  
  Do you not wash your vegetables before cooking them?
  
  Sure, but you're washing your vegetables anyway right?
  
  But the dude also caressed your rutabaga with those fingers.

This was me today. I just wanted some apples dammit.

after working at a supermarket you can open one in like 1s 🙏 skill issue

All grocery stores actually sell a product that can help you with this, it's called "hand lotion".
- How is using hand lotion on the bag gonna make it open?
  
  You gently rub it around the lip in slow, circular motions while telling it it's pretty

I find its easy to open up the bag while its still attached to the roll its like having more hands. I’ll definitely try crumpling the bag next time.

That's nothing, go buy a roll of dog poop bags...
- I've honestly started to open the first poop bag before going out
- Just lick your fingers. Before you touch the poop of course

How have I become a dad? I don't even have a girlfriend.

Like your uncle said back in the day: blow it

I had filled one bag. Then tried to fill the othet with air to open it up, when the filled one broke and everything went out the bottom.

Man, this stuff is so embarrassing. There have been so many times, I've skipped on buying fruits just because I couldn't open the bag and my anxiety engaged into overdrive

Tip: distress the edge by pulling at it. This causes the sides to separate. Sometimes you gotta create a tear to get them to separate enough to get it

I always grab a disinfecting wipe at the entrance and use it to wet my fingers so I can open them.

it's called grocery bag fission

118 comments