I’m so glad I read your story all the way to the end.
In addition to the history/walk down memory lane of grocery shopping, as a kid, with my folks....that last line gave me a good laugh.
Thanks for sharing. I had a friend, in HS, whose dad was a Safeway manager. Mom and I stopped in that store, one day, and he checked us out...and....sacked the items, as he rang them up. I remember being kind of impressed with that :-)
Appreciated it, even more, when I began my own shopping. Sacking groceries, properly, is a lost art.
In fairness, those plastic bags they use these days make proper bagging very difficult. Paper bags were all I had to work with in the 1970s and I became very good at it. Cans on bottom, boxes along the sides that provide a space for more fragile items in the middle. Sometimes I'll get behind the register if the cashier is by herself and will amaze her by having everything bagged by the time she turns around. It's been over 40 years since I bagged groceries for a living but it's like riding a bicycle.