I have a collection of plastic bags. I should stress right away that I don’t actually collect them at all, not in the active sense, but somehow they come to me and live with me in the cupboard anyway. They flock together like birds and feel safety in numbers and, likewise, they know that they’re safe with me. I didn’t ask them to come here but that’s what happened. It’s just how it turned out. They crept in one by one and at first they were like nervous squirrels, shy and shivering but also lost and hungry and looking for something. They began to feel at home when they realised I would never throw them away, not even when I had more than I could possible put to use. They knew this long before I did, so they started to come here in great numbers whilst I was still living a normal life. It’s not normal any more because there really are too many plastic bags in my house.
Some bags are very useful, no-one can deny that. They’re very helpful around the house if you need something that you can put stuff in, maybe to carry an onion to a friend’s house or to scoop up some dog poo before you put it in the dog poo bin. Without plastic bags everything would be so very untidy and disorganised, and there would be bits everywhere where bits shouldn’t be.
No, you should never throw bags away when you can keep them in a cupboard or a draw. The best thing to do is to put them in a bigger plastic bag, and probably fold them up to make sure that they don’t get creased or there is air trapped inside them. You can label one bag “big bags”, another one “small bags”, and yet another one “medium bags” if you’re really keen. That way you can easily have hundreds and hundreds of plastic bags in your house, and you’d still know where they were if you needed one. Everything would be very sensible and normal.
The thing is, I’ve gone far beyond what you would call “normal” with regards to the retention and storage of plastic bags. Once I had filled all the empty cupboards and drawers with plastic bags, and all the buckets and boxes, I started to put them in the cellar. It seemed so much like an empty cave at first, damp and musty and full of dust, but it was still a worthy refuge for a homeless plastic sack. In less than a month, I managed to push so many into that space that it is now almost like high density solid plastic. I had to lock the cellar door and push the last ones underneath it. I don’t think it hurt them. After all, anything is better than the agony of being blown by the wind and ripped to shreds on barbed wire fences, or the embarrassment of being earthed over on a rubbish tip. No, they deserve better than that.
At the same time, don’t rush to the conclusion that any of the special bags were stuffed in such a rough-and-tumble place. No, they stay in the bedroom with me. When any new bags would arrive, silently and dangerously in the night, I’d examine them all and pick out the best ones for special duties. Those with reinforced handles are good for carrying heavy items like bricks and melons, especially if they’re made of very thick plastic. Some of them I used to even fixed to the wall like a kind of trophy, until I realised how cruel this barbaric practice is. Thick with remorse I released them all from torment, and spent the best part of a week folding them carefully once more.
A short while ago I confess that I nearly turned upon them. As if suffocated by noxious fumes, I flung the doors and windows open to the wind and begged it to carry them all away. I tried to drag them into the garden and stood there cursing their existence. I wished that my house was empty of plastic bags and that I could see my floors, my beautiful wooden floors again. I cried with my head in my hands, but as a fierce tumult gathered up, it wasn’t to sweep them away but seemed instead to magically fix them all the more tighter together in their resting places. Not only that, but new bags arrived from around the neighbourhood and carried me with them back into the house until I was trapped in my room unable to move. I asked for nothing from them except the opportunity to tell my story so that people might understand.
