Trying in her small way to reduce the number of plastic bags in the oceans, the woman took to the supermarket two cloth bags intended to contain her shopping. One bag was made from several pieces of floral cotton, the other was plain unbleached calico. Printed on the flowery one was the word: Boomerang. The calico one was stamped in brown ink with the image of a mermaid and the little modern mantra: Always Be Yourself Unless You Can Be a Mermaid. The woman drove a wire trolley around the aisles. Somewhere in one of the aisles, when she was not paying attention, she never knew how it happened, the cloth bags both slipped from the trolley. So by the time she reached the checkout, she had to ask for plastic bags anyway. Across from her, at the next checkout, far away and out of reach, a woman with shiny brown curly hair and her daughter with weird brown dreadlocks handed over to the checkout chick a floral cotton bag and an unbleached calico bag bearing the faint brown outline of a mermaid. They bought a large plastic bottle of water and a lot of museli bars.

                                     always be yourself unless you can be a mermaid