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Tallis in Wonderland

On Being Thanked By A Paper Bag

Raymond Tallis thinks outside the bag.

On the way out of a shop the other day, I looked at the bag in which my purchases were stored. “Thank you” it said, “Please call again”. This invitation to return could not have been anticipated from my experience of calling the first time, which, speaking off the record, had not given an unequivocal impression that my custom had been valued. The paper bag was more polite than the person slaving at the ‘dark, satanic tills’ who had served me.

A few days later I was on a train, and after the routine requests to “be alert” and to “report any suspicious items or behaviour” – exhortations I have received thousands of times over the last few decades – there was a further announcement, preceded by earwax-melting tannoyed ding dongs, to the effect that the train would arrive late.

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