The Scottish blood in me (I think there’s Scottish blood in there) abhors wasting money.  It’s not that I’m cheap, it’s just…. I’m cheap.  I’m sure I drive the kids and Nikki nuts with my ways.  I’m a big “turn that off” guy, just like your dad was when you were young.  Five humans live in our house, that means there are a LOT of (like, at least 35 or so) very dexterous fingers that can turn electric devices on.  Having electric things on means that there is a steady drip of money leaking out of my wallet until the darn things are turned off.  Televisions, game consoles, computers (ok, so most of these are mine, and some can’t be turned off for very important reasons, but roll with me here), lights, fans, electric toothbrushes, toasters, grills, mixers, phonographs, food processors, hair dryers, curling irons, hair straighteners, humidifiers, de-humidifiers, and toys of all shapes and sizes are constantly powered on, sucking electrons from the grid at a rate that makes me weak and fluttery just thinking about it.  It’s not even about the environment, or the 7 hectares of virgin rain forest they bulldozed last week just for our house alone, it’s all about the cash, people.  I’m a selfish, selfish man.  If I can also save the world by being the “turn that off” guy, then great.  But that’s not my main goal here. I’m trying to find a way to retire before I’m dead.

But I digress.  I’m not here to talk about electricity.  I’m here to talk about lunch kits.  For various reasons we are historically unable to purchase, and retain lunch kits.  Cael is the only member of our family that has a perfect track record with lunch kits, he is still using his from last year and it’s mostly still in one piece.  So, for the rest of the family we have been using recycled grocery bags to carry lunches around.  Not the most environmentally friendly option, I know.  But at least up until now we had a readily available supply of these things.  No longer, as the closet supply has finally been exhausted.  We didn’t know it at the time, but we reached “peak bag” about a month ago, when our supply started dwindling rapidly due to using enviro bags to do our groceries all of the time.

Anyway, I was recently complaining about the lack of a mainstream lunch transport mechanism (i.e. lunch kit) solution and mentioned to Nikki that we were out of grocery bags.  She brightly suggested that we use doggy bags for the kids lunches, since they are biodegradable after all.

Hm.

Picture for a moment what it would be like (particularly, the teacher’s expression) to plop a black bag tied at the top containing lumpy shapes onto your desk at school, tear that sucker open and then start eating the contents.

I decided right then that while new lunch kits for the family might be an extravagance, we could probably swing it this month.