Bagging Groceries the Tetris Way
How Tetris transformed this writer into the ultimate grocery bagging machine.
Growing up, one of my favorite things to do was visit the grocery store with my mother. These were weekly occurrences where I jumped into the uncomfortable and rickety metal shopping carts and laughed as my mom tossed items my way, which I grabbed on the fly and did my best to neatly arrange in the bottom of the cart. You know, similar to repositioning Tetriminos in Tetris!
When we reached the checkout line, I hopped out of the cart and rushed toward the end of the conveyor belt. Organizing food in the cart was one thing, but it paled in comparison to carefully tucking away groceries into paper and plastic bags.
Every week, I’d challenge myself to bag faster and more efficiently. It was an unconventional puzzle, an upgrade from sitting cross-legged on the living room floor shouting Jeopardy answers at the TV in the evening, and a great way to indulge my Tetris obsession when I was away from the video game.
To this day, I attribute my love of Tetris to those weekly shopping trips.
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If I close my eyes, I can still picture the way I’d analyze each item as it rolled down the conveyor belt. I strategically separated the boxes, the fruit, and the non-food items. As I packed things away, my mother would always laugh and jest with the employee ringing us up, saying, “She’s already looking for a job!”
No offense to my mom, but this was never about finding work. Instead, it was about securing my own personal victory and seeing progress each week, all thanks to Tetris.
Slowly, each frozen dinner was stacked in a matching row, and all of the small odds and ends were tucked into the sides of bags with a little extra room. Most importantly, heavy gallons of milk were always double-bagged to ensure I didn’t drop the container; that happened once, unfortunately, and of course the milk went everywhere.
With enough practice, I became a grocery store Tetris master, and still am. To this day, I head to the self-checkout and race myself to bag the groceries as quickly as I can using my top Tetris skills. Now when I play Tetris on my smartphone or computer, my mind will start swapping the colorful Tetriminos with groceries, and vice versa. The bottom of the screen will transform into the end of the conveyor belt, and off I’ll go putting everything into its rightful place.
Tetris is at times frantic, but also calming and even therapeutic. Whether you’re a child trying to arrange groceries in one bag after another, or an adult attempting to figure out how to fit three large suitcases into the trunk of your car, the essence of Tetris remains the same. It becomes a part of our lives early on, making it easy to see why Tetris continues to retain its popularity decades after its 80s debut.
If you stop to think about it, I’m sure you can think of dozens of ways in which you call upon Tetris in your everyday life. Funny, isn’t it? How Tetris is the one game we can all universally relate to, one way or another.
