As a committed Freegan, this development doesn't concern me in the least.

I never saw a cockroach until I moved to NY in 97. Called my dad in desperation on how to deal with the "friends" who moved into my moving boxes. He told me that roaches are bloodsuckers and I should put my bed in the middle of the room and spray a clorox ring both around the bed on the floor and on the ceiling above.

I reuse paper bags by filling them with shit, putting them on the neighbor's doorstep and setting them on fire.

I actually use my paper bags to abort children and gay marry .. things.

Yo no puedo caminar!

@Sarcastro: One of the saddest things I have seen in my many years of living in NYC was freegans harassing a Dunkin Donuts employee as he tried to throw out the garbage. They ripped it open gleefully and began cheering, then shoved handfuls of them (without baggies) into their Crass-patch covered backpacks and skipped away like it was the best day of their whole lives.

Time to steal the (expired) donuts.

Man, paper and roaches are so not what they used to be

@hamburgerhotdog: So, I'm thinking the e.t.a. apocalypse is, what, a week or so?

Devolution is fun!

If a Whole Foods is Jewish owned and the cockroaches are German and we set the German cockroaches on fire in paper bags....dammit, I had a bad joke in there somewhere..

Remember when those "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" bags were really cool like two years ago? When you bought one, they put your purchase in a plastic bag.

This whole "green" thing is just another greedy hand of capitalism posing as a warm and fuzzy embrace. Whole Foods just wants you to spend more dinero on food.

The early morning visual of cucarachas is definitely helping my anorexia plan for the day.

You know, if your hand was invisible, you'd probably find it was being pretty greedy too.

That just how invisibility works, yo.

No but I really do reuse all of my plastic bags. I literally have never thrown one away. Except, you know, when I'm using it as a trash bag. But then, I've also never bought a box of trash bags either. The grocery store bags double as my weeks worth of garbage bags, and so forth. I wouldn't want paper bags, because then I'd have to buy a box of hefty bags every week or two.

But maybe thats part of the conspiracy.

But I thought the whole point was that we could throw away paper bags because they will break down. Why worry that people won't reuse them then?

GP's household hint of the day: Paper bags work much better for scooping poop in your yard since they stand alone.

Don't those idiots at Whole Foods know that something is not "food" until it has come into contact with plastic? Ask my father...

Joe Rogan, call your agent. Spokesperson position opening up soon.

@skahammer: commie. this is a nomination as well as a declarative statement.

Well then, shouldn't Whole Foods be commended for not opening up in the Bronx, which has the highest asthma rates in the city? Hmmm?

@KarenUhOh:

+ Watch video

@hypocriteoath: I'd settle for someone appending an apostrophe-S to my "That."

@skahammer: actually, I think it works much better the way it is...

You have to make a pact with the roaches. You have the apartment during the day. They have it at night. Either that or buy a gekko.

I was at the counter at the Roy Rogers in Penn Station (Amtrak side) when a roach strolled right smack down the middle of counter between the server/cashier and me. What bothered me particularly is that she didn't notice, and this roach was the size of Rhode Island. When another customer brought her attention to the matter, she looked annoyed and made a big point of slowly puttting on vinyl gloves and wadding up a paper towel to kill the critter. Both the other customer and I cleared out.

Um, roaches in NYC? That's not shocking enough to cause even mild arrhythmia. However, after watching a homeless man eat from the Whole Foods buffet with his bare hands...I died a little inside.

Yes, I'm talking to you, Whole Foods in Union Square.

@Mike_Jahn: I have heard stories about Peter Lugers that would make you projectile vomit.

@BettyCrocker: Es que tu faltas algo que fumar?

Why don't they take their bitchin' down the street to Trader Joes, where you're more likely to find a roach than any of the actual food items you came to shop for. Ground beef, milk and eggs? Ha you must jest! Buy this triple fudge covered peanut butter injected pretzel nibbles instead.

roaches. DO NOT WANT.

Hamilton: curse you for making me look at that heinous picture. You should've hidden that one after the jump AND specified that it was NSFHL (not safe for Henifer Hropes).

Someone send me a message when that picture is gone from the 1st page. I can't come back til then

@hamburgerhotdog: Watch out for Trader Joe's meat that expires despite shrink wrapping and expiration dates.

complete side note: There was a man begging for money on the train this morning so he could 'get some food to put his belly on'. the request made no sense but we all parsed what he was looking for. Some gave him change, I did not. The girl sitting next to me handed him a banana and he looked at her with absolute contempt... like, "I don't actually want food you dumb ho. I want money. to buy rocks!" I mean, this is typical but funny to see every time.

Thanks for this. Now I know why I only had childhood asthma until I moved to this city.
grrrreat!

Martin Mull or someone like that may have suggested this in the 70s ... it sounds like him ... but we could have Roach Paintball -- with special weapons firing tiny Raid-tipped bullets. Little night-vision scopes. I can see enjoying a round or two of Roach Paintball before retiring for the night.

Why not:

buy what you need at the moment, thereby eliminating the need for bags altogether?

("But", you say, "I'll have to run back and forther to the store every time I want to eat!")

Exactly. You'll be in better shape.
No bags. No problem.

So, one could make the argument that the reason we have bags is that we are - as a community - lazy.

@hypocriteoath: Right. Someone got money out of me one time by just being honest and saying "I need a drink."

@ineffable.me: roach and rat feces is one of the hugest contributors to asthma, which is why poor neighborhoods like the South Bronx have the highest rates of asthma in the city.

@YourGoldKeith: I spend much of my time living in the far burbs by the shore, and don't have a car, for one thing having lived in NYC for three decades prepped me to do without. For another thing, I found that I don't need one. I can get 90% of what I need on foot or by bike. And the other 10% can be done with cabs. I only spend about $20 a week that way, but if I spent five times that much I'd still come out way ahead of what it would cost to own a car. And then there are the health and environmental issues.

@Spirit Fingers:

I'm surprised that the staff at the Union Sq Whole Foods let the homeless guy get away with that because they're usually very, very bossy.

I was there not long ago, downstairs, trying to find some organic anise-flavored toothpaste and was overcome by the intense claustrophobia that's endemic to that particular Whole Foods location.

Anyway, I pulled down my pants to give myself an injection of 16mg Ativan, and the "toiletries clerk," one of those vegan hyper-feminists who froths with rage at the sight of hairy male buttocks, starts screaming in a really ostentatious way that I'm some sort of sex criminal, which to her mind is any human male who hasn't been forcibly castrated.

That little maniac and her sisters are more likely to force cockroaches to read Our Bodies, Ourselves than crush them.

@Mike_Jahn: so I'd say 'Give that man a gold star!'
Even for someone who lives in the city, your sit sounds idyllic, fer reals. Well done.

I used to alter the phrase, "a tree grows in brooklyn", with, "a bag grows on that tree". There used to be a bunch of "bag trees" on PPW, believe it or not.

I moved out of my last apartment because it was taken over by "waterbugs" the size of hamsters. Did you know that waterbugs are really just cockroaches? Anyway, since then I still sometimes see things scurrying out of the corner of my eye even though my new place is vermin free, and I definitely have some PTSD issues because I have roach filled nightmares every so often. So, thanks for helping me relive the trauma with that photo. Also, fuck you.

@Unfun:

My dear child, did you consider whipping up individual hamster costumes for the cockroaches taking over your apartment?

Sometimes it's better to whip up a very small hamster costume than to curse the darkness.

Best cockroach scene ever.

Best cockroach scene ever.

+ Watch video

@Mike_Jahn: honesty: best policy. always.

It's true! I worked at a Supermarket and they had a colony in the stacks of paper bags. It's like their condos.

Between plastic bags and cockroaches, I'LL take my chances with the bugs. At least they're organic.

You're all over-reacting. This is part of the service. The cockroaches have been asked to start the break down the paper bags now.

@Cheap Shot: They eat paper, right? Cellulose is in paper just like in lettuce, etc.

This is why I only shop at C-TOWN, where the roaches roam free instead of being holed up in the paper bags.