This is quite possibly the best thing I've learned in the last year. How many times have you struggled to open one of these without licking your finger?

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, as we were under a Stay At Home order, I was at Woodman's Market on Perryville Road in Rockford. It was kind of eerie how empty the roads were, especially once I got to the store and it was incredibly busy. I was there trying to get the same things everyone else was trying to find:

  • Meat
  • Produce
  • Snacks
  • Toilet paper
  • Hand sanitizer

What happened to me next, I hoped no one actually witnessed. Since we'd been wearing masks for such a short time, I wasn't consciously aware that it was on my face while picking out some lemons. I grabbed a green produce bag and went to lick my finger to open the bag and actually stuck my finger into my mask, not remembering that it was there. There was no way I could open that bag without a little spit. From all the hand washing, my hand were as dry as the desert. I tried so hard to get that bag top to separate and I couldn't. I still remember those ten lemons just rolling free in my cart until they got bagged at checkout.

My next trip to Woodman's produce section was quite the success story. Thanks to a very kind woman who laughed with me and then showed me how she learned to open these bags without licking a finger.

Watch!

Don't forget the 'shimmy'... that's the most important part.

This isn't the first time I've written about my great experiences in Woodman's Market. During the incredibly scary and stressful beginnings of the pandemic, I saw something pretty special happening inside that store. Please read, Open Letter to Rockford Woodman's Food Market Employees.

LOOK: Milestones in women's history from the year you were born

Women have left marks on everything from entertainment and music to space exploration, athletics, and technology. Each passing year and new milestone makes it clear both how recent this history-making is in relation to the rest of the country, as well as how far we still need to go. The resulting timeline shows that women are constantly making history worthy of best-selling biographies and classroom textbooks; someone just needs to write about them.

Scroll through to find out when women in the U.S. and around the world won rights, the names of women who shattered the glass ceiling, and which country's women banded together to end a civil war.

Steve Shannon is host of The Steve Shannon Show on 97ZOK. On the air weekday mornings from 6 to 10 a.m. and a special 'Rewind' show, featuring favorite moments from previous shows, on Saturday mornings from 5 to 7 a.m.. Follow him on TwitterInstagram, and like his page on Facebook.

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