"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn." --C.S. Lewis

So, I fancy myself a moderately experienced adult, who is capable of doing many things and making many different decisions with an acceptable amount of success.  Nothing to brag about, but certainly capable.  I have learned, though, several things today.

• The best way to carry one's new cranberry colored tweed knee length jacket to one's second floor apartment is to wear it.
• The best way to carry one's new blanket to one's second floor apartment is to strap it to one's duffel bag.
• The best way to carry one's 17" x 32" framed print to one's second floor apartment is not to carry it wrapped up in one's favorite pink bedspread, but sometimes you just have to.

Being born in the mid-eighties, I have absolutely no adult experience with paper grocery sacks.  By the time that I had any purchasing power, the choice was not "paper or plastic" but "plastic or cloth bags you brought with you."  As such, I've made interesting discoveries after visiting the Aldi in Trussville, Alabama.

• Double bagging is a good thing.
• Carrying paper bags full of cans up to one's second floor apartment is neither easy nor pleasurable.
• Carrying paper bags full of cans up to one's second floor apartment is hazardous as there is nothing by which to grab on to said bags except for paper sides.
• Regardless of how sturdy of a grip one feels one has when one starts to carry paper bags up to one's second floor apartment, the bags will always slide down one's new cranberry colored tweed knee length jacket towards the ground.
• Sequined zebra ballet flats do not protect one's toes from 30 oz cans of pinto beans.

Aldi is one of those places with great prices, but you have to pay for bags.  As I had no more empty cloth bags, I thought that I would be both more economic AND greener if I used paper bags (which were four cents cheaper than plastic).  I now have a greater appreciation of both plastic bags and cloth bags--both for their strength, and one for it's ecological impact.

However, my pantry is now stocked, and cheaply so.

Oh, and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving.