Hasta La Ideas

pThis morning from my windowless cell of a New York apartment, on my laptop toolbar’s weather-notifier-thingy I spotted the dreaded “Wintry Mix” warning. “Wintry mix” means four different kinds of things are falling out of the sky and all of them will make you wet./p

pAfter running errands in the afternoon I stopped off at Muji to pick up some paper goods I needed. As I stood there dripping at the counter, I watched the clerk put the stuff in their standard paper shopping bags and cursed myself for not heeding “Wintry Mix” and bringing a waterproof backpack. Paper goods, once wet, become paper bads. /p

pThen the clerk pulled out something I’ve never seen before–a sheet of thin, clear plastic roughly in the shape of a box with no bottom, with a slit cut in the top. This she placed over the paper bag like a sort of condom, and the twine handles protruded neatly through the slit for carrying. Carried my stuff home nice and dry./p

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pI’m not going to debate the environmental merits and demerits of this (i.e. “It’s wasteful” vs. “It’s not wasteful because they only use plastic when it’s wet out, which is better than using plastic all the time”), but I’m writing this up because I’m impressed at how a lot of Japanese retailers really do think through every aspect of the customer’s experience. Now I’m off to go make use of my (dry) paper goods./p

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p align=centerMay or may not pass the sniff test forbrgreen-ness, but sure comes in handy/P
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