Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

The Plastic Bag Store

I went to a show! Well, not really a show, because they’re not allowed right now, but an “experience” that I got to have with about nine other people. It was sort of an art gallery crossed with performance piece. But it was art; it was shared! So exciting, so hopeful; thank you Time Square Alliance, for letting me experience The Plastic Bag Store.

The Plastic Bag Store is at once homage and indictment of our current plastic-addicted society. First we entered a trompe-l’oeil grocery store, where we realized that everything, each tomato and sushi roll, was actually made from plastic bags. Next, we watched three short films starring some amazing puppets (“Helen of Troy, NY,” a custodian at the Met, was my favorite) that take us first to Ancient Greece; then to the current day, where Helen sweeps up discarded plastic. Finally we go to the distant future, where people study the plastic artifacts of our era (“the Customer era”), though they have little but unearthed plastic to go on, because all of our digitally recorded history was lost in the great blackout, during the Robot Wars.

Clever and funny and yet pointed and scary.

I have conflict. Sometimes I look at my cutlery drawer, and I think, I can do better. I could get some nice, eco-friendly bamboo dividers from The Container Store. But then what happens to mine? I have two cheap ones. I’m pretty sure one of them has been with me since before I was married. It’s probably 30 years old. It’s not pretty, and it never really was. But, it does the job. It separates my forks from my spoons just as well as a bamboo one would. If it were a couch, or a chest of drawers, maybe someone would want it. But no one wants my plastic-mesh silverware sorter. I suppose I could recycle it, but I think our nation is having trouble keeping up with our recycling as it is. Truly, the best thing for me to do with my ugly old silverware sorter is to just keep using it.

Because there’s a difference between being organized and being Instagrammable. I’m organized: My forks are separate from my spoons and my knives, I know where to find them and I don’t have more than I need. However, nobody is going to be impressed by look of my cutlery tray.

I understand the allure of making things look nice. My hangers all match, and I had to donate and recycle a whole bunch of hangers that probably no one wanted to make that happen. But my dreams are bigger than a pretty closet now. I’ve seen the future and I don’t want it to be The Plastic Bag Store.

Rather than worrying about what things look like, focus on what matters: keeping your possessions in order so you can find them when you need them, rather than buying more than you need. We can save the earth, one (declined) plastic bag at a time.