One of my favorite trauma-dramas is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Each time I watch it, I swear I will never watch it again. But then a decade will go by and someone will bring up Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton and I’ll remember how brilliant they were in this film and mention it to my husband Gary (who would watch it several times a year if we lived in separate houses) and before I know it, I’ve seen it again.

Afterward, I sit in stunned silence, my childhood flashing like zoetrope images across my brain, unable to go to sleep until 3:00am, and swear I will never watch it again.

Part of the reason the movie is so disturbingly alluring is because it is filled with epic lines.

One of Gary’s and my favorite exchanges is when Martha (Taylor) commands George (Burton) to “fix the kids a drink.”

Nick (George Segal) asks his tipsy wife Honey (Sandy Dennis) “What would you like?” And she says, “Ohhhh, I don’t know, dear, a little brandy maybe. ‘Never mix, never worry!’”

My friend—avid It Happened at Purity blog reader, dog sitter, Godmother to our daughter, and retired College of the Redwoods Financial Aid Officer who I’ll call MW—failed to heed the advice of never mix, never worry on a recent shopping trip to The Purity.

MW had taken care of our 14.5-year old dog Wilson for a weekend while we were out of town. The following Thursday, after a stressful day, she went to The Purity. While the checker rang up her purchases, long time employee Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-a) filled one of MW’s reusable bags.

She opened the second bag, peered inside, looked at MW and said, “What do we have here—underpants?”

MW—who is the most modest woman I know—issued a dog-like yelp loud enough to set off the pagers of every volunteer firefighter in town.

Marcia, who has worked at The Purity for a couple of decades and witnessed things you and I cannot even imagine, took the incident in stride and claimed to own a pair of similar hue (bright fuchsia).

Reusable shopping bag

MW stuttered to explain that she’d used the bag on an overnight stay and had apparently neglected to remove all garments. Marcia chuckled and said that she’d done the same thing a week before.

While MW blushed and prayed for immediate death, Marcia simply packed the groceries on top of the panties and called it a day.

Overnight bag

The moral of this story: Reusable shopping bags are designed to be used as shopping bags. Overnight bags are designed to be used as overnight bags.

Never mix, never worry!