Real Men Don't Use Plastic...Except in Manteo

At least that was the headline (sort of) in the Outer Banks Sentinel today, and we must always believe everything the media prints. See, I told ya.

In case you haven't heard, the North Carolina legislature passed a law effective September 1st banning the use of plastic bags in a very few situations.....

....on Barrier Islands only. And not on other islands. Nor anywhere else in the state. And even on barrier islands the rule doesn't apply to small stores, such as 7-11, bait and tackle shops and newspapers delivered in the rain. Nor anything that contains meat or meat by-products as a packaging exterior. Or items purchased at a small hardware store.

Actually, the entire law appears to be aimed at Food Lion, Harris-Teeter, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and K-Mart. Unless they are located in Elizabeth City. Or Raleigh. Or Charlotte. Or Winston-Salem- Greensboro- High Point, Cary, Durham and Mayberry, all of which possess significantly larger populations than the barrier islands and hence, use more plastic bags. But these towns don't have sea turtles, whom apparently like to eat plastic bags.

So, says I to myself, "this seems fair". Until I noticed the sponsor of the bill excluded his home town, which is on this island. But not a barrier island. (At least not now. As soon as the beach finishes eroding in Nags Head, their status will change). Don't trust me? Here's proof...

See? It is an island, which happens to contain the town of Manteo, our county seat (and therefore the social and political conscious of the entire county). Apparently, islands are surrounded on four sides by water. Whereas the "island" where I live is actually a peninsula, surrounded by water on only three sides. And one of those sides is Oregon Inlet, which doesn't really count.

And its not as though people from Manteo wouldn't go to the grocery store, purchase items packed in plastic bags, and then carry those bags onto our beach ... where the wind or a kid deposits it into the ocean. And then the bag winds up in a sea turtle's buffet. Now we know why Southern Shores doesn't allow people from Manteo on their beaches. If they did, they might actually bring their legal plastic bags with them and threaten Southern Shores wildlife.

Nor are there any boating communities on Manteo/Roanoke Island. Except for Pirate's Cove, Broadcreek Marina, Thicket Lump Marina, Heritage Point, and the entire Wanchese commercial fishing area. Next time you observe a charter or small fishing boat leave a dock on Roanoke Island, you won't see lunch, beer, chips, bait, and lures packed in plastic bags being brought on board. If you are blind. And where are those bags eventually opened? In the Gulf Stream, where they can be directly fed to the sea turtles year-round as the wind takes a few hundred every day off the boat and into the water.

Thus, I traveled to Manteo today, just to see if the folks there were honoring the wishes of their favorite son and the sponsor of the anti-plastic bag bill. Because its not really the law that makes us despise plastic bags. Its for the the sake of the planet and of course, the children. Here is the store, which by its size and volume would fall under the plastic bag ban if located 10 miles east...

And what did I behold?


A real man toting a plastic bag while setting a bad example for his young ward. I am an equal opportunity offender, so I feel morally bound to publish this picture also...

That's right. In our county seat, even real women use plastic bags. And, if you stand in the Food-A-Rama parking lot, looking to the east, this is what you observe...

Enlarge the picture if you must (by clicking on it) but this photo, taken from the Food-A-Rama parking lot in Manteo depicts Shallowbag Bay, which empties into Roanoke Sound and then to the Atlantic Ocean...sitting there less than .2 miles across the street. Waiting to suck up a stray plastic bag. Or two. I counted at least three in open-air garbage cans in the Food-A-Rama parking lot. One gust of wind and Flipper goes to his doom.

I returned to Manteo later in the day to see if plastic bags were still in use. I was surprised by what my eyes beheld. Apparently, people from Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and other points north had migrated to the Food-A-Rama in order to obtain these plastic bags. Why? We use them to line small trash cans, contain the detritus from litter box cleaning, and clean up after our dogs take a walk. Paper just doesn't cut it, which is why exactly 0% of American trash cans and litter boxes are lined with paper. Look at this crowd, all because of the plastic bag ban on the northern beaches....

I imagine the Food-A-Rama folks were ecstatic.

But not worry. I will soon be selling plastic bags on a street corner near you in Nags Head. I will bring them in from the plastic-bag dens of the larger cities to the north, where bag dealers and bag runners fill the night offering their seedy wares. And how will I hide them from the local constabulary?

Easy. They fit comfortably and unobtrusively in this container. I suspect if pulled over the average cop will think me a model citizen. Really.