Incident at a Madison food co-op.

We'd picked out a half gallon of ice cream, and I caught up to the others at the check-out, where things seemed to be moving rather slowly. There was the ice cream, and there, right next to it on the counter, lying flat and folded, was a bag about the right size for the ice cream. I thought I would speed things along by putting the ice cream container in the bag. I plunged one hand into the bag to open it up and — ugh! — what was in the bag?!

"That's the compost bag," one of the cashiers said, laughing. Looking in, I saw soggy, garbage-y vegetable matter. Ugh!

Did we want a bag for the ice cream? Yeah, we did. We got the bag and got the hell out of there. I did not look back, but one of my companions did. "The cashiers are still laughing at you."

Ugh!