So I’ve got some rollover vacation days to use up this month, and today was one of them. As a result of a largely sleepless weekend (petsitting, a noisy downstairs neighbor whom I’ve dubbed “Keith” because of his physical similarity to that member of The Prodigy - pictured left, police involvement, and a 3 a.m. confrontation with Keith that was resolved peacefully) I caught up on my sleep today - by way of sleeping until 11:11.

Thus, the likelihood of getting my car in for an oil change was slim. I called a few places anyway. It seems that I spoke to the same guy no matter where I called; a sleepy young man who (I imagine) looked away from the magazine he was flipping through just long enough to say, “yeah, no one’s even gonna be able to touch it for at least another two hours.”

Harrumph.

Plan B: shopping. There was a need for some work clothing (pants), some socks, shampoo, circular knitting needles, bumble and bumble tonic spray, and the pharmacy. I brought along a totebag to avoid getting 5 or 10 more plastic shopping bags that I absolutely don’t need. This proved far more difficult than I thought possible.

I didn’t bring the totebag into stores with me because that would be suspicious and I’d just be asking for trouble; it’s one thing in a foodstore, but quite another in a clothing or craft store. That wasn’t the problem.

My first stop was for shampoo and b&b spray. “I don’t need a bag, thanks.” Not a problem. The cashier gave me the receipt and sent me on my way. Done and done, in the totebag.

Stop #2: craft store for circular knitting needles. The distracted teenage cashier put them in a bag despite my saying I didn’t need one, but that was more because she was talking to her co-worker. When I reiterated my desire to remain bagless, she took the needles out of the bag and handed them to me with the receipt. Lovely.

Stop #3: pharmacy for the pill. This is well into the realm of TMI, but it’s for a purpose, so bear with me. Some birth control pills come in a lovely little clamshell case; I actually bought a reusable one with a “fun fashion design.” So when I go to the pharmacy and they give me the faded Pepto-Bismol pink clamshell case in addition to the pill refill, I tell them that I don’t need it and specifically ask them not to give it to me. It’s a wasted chunk of non-recyclable plastic. I told the pharmacist today the same thing; she looked at me as if I’d said, “I would like to give you $500 for that tube of lip balm.” Seriously - it made me feel like I might be a little crazy and perhaps not actually speaking the words I thought I was.

She stammered and said, “But it goes with it.”
I said, “Yes, I know - but they don’t come together and I already have one. I really don’t need it.”
Pharmacist: But they go together.
Me: I really don’t need it, though. Just the pills are fine. I already have a case.

She shrugged and told me how much money I’d have to hemorrhage for this particular prescription and while I was getting my card from my wallet, she placed the little “here are the ways this drug could possibly kill you” paper and meds into the paper privacy bag. I also told her I didn’t need a plastic bag, and that elicited an “OK.”

As I walked to the car, I noticed that the bag felt a little heavy for a small ring of tiny birth control pills. Lo and behold, she’d thrown in the stupid plastic clamshell case anyway - apparently while I was distracted getting out my method of payment. That was some mighty great customer service there. Truly.

Stop #4: clothing store #1. I found pants and a shirt. Again, went to the cash register and told the clerk that I did not need a shopping bag. She asked me if I was sure, and I said yes - that I was parked right outside and had enough bags already. “Oh,” said she, and I said, “I don’t think anyone will have a problem as long as I have my receipt on my way out, right?” (Clearly, but it’s the sort of silly obvious comment you sometimes have to make to clarify your point without sounding possibly bitchy.) No problem and I walked out with clothing, paper and no bag.

Stop #5: clothing store #2. Two pairs of pants. I said, “I don’t need a bag.”
[cashier double-take]: You don’t need a bag?”
Me: No thanks. I have so many already, it’s just a waste.
Cashier: Are you sure, hon? You really don’t want a bag?
Me: I’m good. I’ll be fine with just the receipt.
Cashier: The bag will be easier to carry.
Me: It’s fine. I’m parked right outside.
Cashier: OK. If you’re sure.
Me: Yes I am, thanks! (getting a little testy here)

Stop #6: Whole Foods for a box of ginger snaps, salad from the salad bar and a box of chamomile & lavender tea. The cashier asked what kind of bag I wanted. I said, “none.” She nodded in assent, took my money and told me to have a nice day.

That’s totally the way to do it, but I wouldn’t really expect much less from yuppie-hippie central. Trader Joe’s is also really great about this (similar demographic, too, surprise-surprise).

It just goes to show how far we have to go before being less wasteful or somewhat environmentally conscious is understood and not viewed as crazy person behavior. I was telling my like-minded friends about this whole voyage and one suggested, “You should’ve just said ‘I don’t need a bag - I’m a hippie’. That would probably work.” Maybe. But it’s annoying to have to waste breath on any sort of explanation, justification, clarification, etc. for something this simple.

It crosses over into customer service territory. Having been on the other side of the register back in my bookstore days, I know you’re riding on auto-pilot some of the time and shoving things into a bag is simply part of the assembly line process. But the customer service part isn’t hard if you keep a single neuron firing; if someone was only buying a magazine, I’d ask, “Do you even want a bag?” More often than not, they’d pause and say, “Nah, I don’t need one just for this.” Yes, sometimes they’d say, “You’d better give me one - I’ll be going into other stores.” Fair enough - but let the customer make that call.

I’d best get to sleep. There might be pills involved. Waking up at 11 doesn’t bode well for falling asleep at a decent hour tonight without chemical intervention.

Almost two years ago now (it may be closer to a year and a half, but I’m not keeping track), I deleted my accounts at all the social networking sites I belonged to. At that time, Facebook was still only open to college students and corporations (that changed all the way back in Sept. 2006). Friendster was beginning to die its slow painful death, and MySpace was teh hawtness (if I may use a two-year old -or more- slang phrase).

Yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered, one of their contributors talked about abandoning Facebook altogether and how she feels like a Luddite. You can listen to the piece here (it’s only 2 min. long). Granted, she’s 23, so the six-year gap between us probably makes enough of a difference that it’s a much bigger deal for her to be absent from Facebook than it is/was for me. She probably is considered a Luddite by some of her friends (though I daresay they might not be familiar with the word).

Most of my friends continue to plug away at Facebook (and there are a few MySpace hangers on) and communicating with friends that way: e.g. “I’ll just Facebook [name] and see if she is going to be around,” or “I left a message for [name] on Facebook asking him to pick that up for me.”

I don’t operate that way. It seems like a terribly inefficient way to communicate with friends. For quick things like that - send a text message. Your friends always have their cell phones with them. For longer things, send an email (or actually call, if it’s urgent). Leaving a message on Facebook requires your friend to be sitting at their computer/laptop somewhere, logged in (and chances are they’re probably on there all the time, so I have to allow for this difference between myself and 58 million other people) and deal with anything else that might’ve popped up: someone’s annoying post about how drunk they were this weekend or much they love their boyfriend, embedded YouTube video of the newest annoying viral phenomenon, perhaps some invitations to get together at a bar with only 40 or 50 of a person’s other closest friends - and “pokes” (We are how old? Oh, wait, this was created with a slightly younger set in mind).

There’s all this periphery and noise - the ads, the streams of irrelevant info being generated by people you feel compelled to befriend but really don’t need/want to know about beyond their pre-established role in your life… a veritable buffet of empty and useless distraction parading around under the guise of social networking.

“Social” = friendly (and who wants to be seen as unfriendly?) “Networking” = is supposed to provide both the technological element and some aspect of legitimacy? Every high school and college student hears about how important networking is to his/her future. Look! We’ve made it fun (or at least made the buzzwords)! “Social networking.”

While Facebook hasn’t become a complete and utter visual vomitorium like MySpace (which is one nice thing), the framework is the same. Users will want more and more control and the powers that be will slowly grant it - little things, but enough to make people feel like they have some control and prevent them from deserting the site which I feel would happen if they had too much/little control. See also: MySpace. It’s the country club effect, I suppose. Some restrictions give it a sense of exclusivity - “Well, if we can’t limit membership, then at least the standards of dress are being upheld!”

But look at the little fish flakes of freedom - removing the verb from your status update so you’re free to write WHATEVER YOU WANT! This actually made national news under the headline “Facebook users given grammatical freedom.”

I was just getting fed up with all of it (and apparently continue to be) and had a sort of “Burn it all down! Make it clean! PURGE!” moment. It’s just too much clutter - too much info I don’t need, too much involvement with people encroaching upon my personal time, too much time wasted (since it does become a major time suck - I see this in my younger target-age siblings… hours and hours) that could be spent pursuing something that makes you a better, happier, smarter, healthier person. Or sleeping. Sleep is a good use of time, too.

Full disclosure: I should mention I belong to one real social network - LinkedIn, which I sardonically refer to as “networking for networking’s sake”, repeating something a friend wrote when he sent me an invitation. But no one’s posting invitations to parties on that site… yet. I also belong to Last.fm, but do not participate in community features. I only wanted this fun music widget on the right.

I love the technology. What are you reading? Yeah. I stay abreast of social networking for work and general awareness, but I guess I’m just not the target audience for the medium of social networking. I don’t want more involvement with people. I’m a quiet person (believe it or not) who values time alone. I don’t want shallow connections with lots of people. I prefer deeper real connections with fewer people. I vastly prefer a small dinner party with three people and good conversation over a large gathering where the conversation is limited to surface discussions of TV shows, celebrity gossip and who is playing beer pong - and where everything else gets lost in the noise.

And having spent all this time sitting in front of the computer, I’m going to balance it out with an hour of running - which has been doing an OK job of making me a better, happier and healthier person.