Nickel and Diming with Julia

Like me, Julia Roberts is all about the environment. Okay, all I have to show for my efforts is the big blue bin and the fact that I constantly unplug things and sit here in the cold all day. I haven’t even seen An Inconvenient Truth. And I still use regular light bulbs. But still, it’s better than nothing.

So Julia was on Oprah the other day and she said that SHE actually takes back her grocery bags and gets five cents for them. Now, Jules, I can see taking back the bags but do you really have to collect the five cents? I know that play flopped and your husband is just a camera man and you do have those twins but still…

Now I'M a freelance writer; I really need that five cents! I wasn’t sure how to go about it though. I mean, is it like taking back cans? Is it something only homeless people (and movie stars) do?

So, as I do with most matters of the environment, I forgot about it.

Then I was at Kroger one day, both to return something and to buy things. When I went through the checkout line I still had my plastic bag from my return. I handed it to the bagger and just said, “Here, I’ll recycle.”

When the checker rang me up she said, “You saved blah blah blah with your Kroger card and five cents with your bag.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You mean just because I handed him that bag I get five cents off my groceries?”

“That’s right,” she said.

This was so exciting! I didn’t even know she saw me do it. And I thought I’d just collect the cash but getting a discount on my groceries is so much more exciting! Total dime zone. Or nickel zone.

“I saw this on Oprah!” I squealed. “Julia Roberts said she recycles bags…so you’re saying I could bring back tons of bags and I would get five cents for each?”

“That’s right,” she answered, ready for me to take my five cents and go.

I’ve been saving up my bags and I’ve got piles of them in my kitchen. I’m so ready to recycle! Just think of all the money I could save. I mean, if I bring back twenty bags, that’s like…hold on, gotta get the calculator. Hey, I’m a writer not a mathematician: That’s $100!! Wait. I think I put the decimal in the wrong place. That’s $1. Wow. That’s not much. But at least I’ll be helping the environment.

Of course every time I’ve gone since then I’ve forgot my bags. They just keep piling up in my cabinets. Maybe I should just give them to Julia. After all, she is preggers again. Three kids and a camera man for a husband? Poor girl's gonna need that $1 more than me.