Tuesday, October 30, 2007

More on Trash Bags

I have to add a post to this subject...Gretchen and I had a good laugh together remembering trash bags put to good use. One of my most vivid memories was in fifth grade, my class had an overnight field trip to the Pilgrim ship in Dana Point. We were told to bring rain gear for the night watches. So there I was, in a trashbag with a neck hole and sleeve holes cut in the sides. The hood was a cut off corner of a second trashbag (think pointy hood) that had been masking taped to the hole in the neck. We were not going to waste good money on a rain coat that I probably wouldn't even use. And, honestly, I'm not too sure that I wouldn't do the same now to my child.

That story reminds me of the many rainy days we experienced in elementary school in which I took plastic baggies and put them over my socks, and then put another pair of socks over those. No one knew that I had my rainboots on under my socks.

And then there was the required emergency packet each child had to produce at school. One of the items on the list was an astronaut blanket made of shiny silver mylar. My emergency packet had a special blanket made of shiny black plastic.

Trash bags. Cheap, available, forgiving, and waterproof. They kept us humble. That is a lot to say about a folded piece of plastic. They served us well, while maintaining the budget, and like mom said, "You can make almost anything out of a trashbag!"

4 comments:

ShackelMom said...

Great ideas, great economy! Never heard of the baggy in the shoe idea!

Lois Thorpe said...

ya know, if i had kids, i'd probably do the same thing... funny and frightening at the same time.

Friar Tuck said...

I love this post. Trash bags do have a number of uses. How about on a car window?

Anonymous said...

Classic! I remember GG telling some of these stories. And--somewhat related--your dad was telling me this week about rubber boots for Brittney.