Why Ziploc Won't be Sponsoring this Blog

Ziploc: Guaranteeing freshness for your
left overs and arguments in my kitchen. 

Product placements are hard to avoid in film and television these days, but some of the most awkward I've seen are on The Biggest Loser, where the contestants and trainers repeatedly break from food prep to smile at the camera and say:

"I just love the way Ziploc keeps my food fresh. It's so easy to save these healthy leftovers with my [insert even wider smile] fabulous Ziploc bags."

This is not how conversations about Ziploc go in my kitchen. If you read yesterday's blog post, Are You Grounded or Stuck?, then you'll understand this confession: Cliff and I are stuck when it comes to Ziplocs. Or at least we were until last month when we declared a truce in The Great Plastic Baggie War of 2011. 

Here's the situation:

I insist on washing and reusing plastic bags. I do this for three reasons:

1. It's better for the environment.
2. It's better for my budget.
3. It's wasteful to throw away something that's still useful

Cliff loves the environment and is equally frugal. And for the first eight years of our marriage, he washed plastic baggies mostly without complaint (there might have been some muttering involved). But a year or two ago, he drew a line in the metaphorical sand: no more washing bags. He hates it, and was just too nice to tell me for the first several years of my insistence.

Out of respect for my feelings, he doesn't throw them away either. He places them in the sink for me to wash, or puts unwashed bags in a kitchen drawer so he can reuse them for the snacks he takes to work. 

There's just one problem: this annoys me. I don't really like washing them out either. And that stack of crumby Ziplocs was really getting out of control. 

The Great Plastic Bag War of 2011 came to a rather undramatic end last month when I, barely able to close the kitchen drawer where the dirty bags are housed, complained to a friend. "These are so gross. What am I supposed to do with them?" 

Cliff, who was standing near by, gave the obvious answer: "Wash them out. I told you I wasn't going to do it."

We then launched into a good-natured but vigorous defense of our own positions that probably sounded something like the old "Whose on first?" routine. It ended with our friend saying, "Promise me you'll write about this on the blog." (Promise kept, DF.)

It was all comically ridiculous, in a cheerful sort of way. But it left me with a realization: I guess I can't be angry about a situation I've created, right? Because the truth is, if I want to improve our family's environmental footprint, or save more money, or even waste less, there are better places to start than Ziplocs. 

It's easy to get caught up in these worthless cycles of debate over relatively meaningless topics. You're stuck. So was I. Until I realized I was stuck in a crumby Ziploc jail of my own making. 

So what happened? Nothing. There's still a stack of used, crumb-filled Ziplocs in my husband's desk drawer at work...he just knows better than to bring them home now. There's probably a freshly washed bag in the sink, too. It's okay for me to hang on to my miserly Ziploc ways, as long as I don't blame Cliff for drawing a different line than I do. 

"I just love the way these fabulous Ziploc keeps my marriage fresh." [Insert wide smile].