Shopping Bags and night mare cashiers

I have some of those reusable bags you take grocery shopping and keep them in the car so that I remember to bring them inside the store. I usually have my three kids with me when I do anything, including grocery shopping; it gets a little crazy when we get out of the car so about half of the time I forget to bring my bags with me into the store. Many stores give you credit (anywhere between 5 to 10 cents per bag you bring). Since it takes me some brain energy to actually remember to bring my bags into the store I fully expect to get my credit, mostly a matter of principle not the money. However, I have found out that most cashiers forget to give you the credit. If you want the credit, you need to ask for it. I am usually trying to keep my kids inside the cart or away from the goodies at the checkout stand so I usually don’t get the chance to ask for the credit. I just sign the receipt and leave as fast as I can and notice once inside the care, that I did not get credit for 5 or 6 or whatever amount of bags I brought in with me.
Last night I went to Albertson’s to take advantage of a double the value of your coupon promotion. You could only use three at a time and I had six of the papers for the promotion. I asked the cashier if she could do two separate transactions but she told me I had to leave the store and walk right back in because it was 3 per shopping trip. Whatever! I thought it was ridiculous. I bought three items using the sale price and doubling coupons which save me $9 and I only paid $1.09. On my way out of the store I noticed she did not give me credit for my bag. So when I went inside to use my other three double coupons, I noticed at the time of paying that one got lost, then she would not double the other one because it was over a dollar and then the last one I had she said she would not double because the product would not only be free, if she gave me credit for the bag, she would then have to pay me money back so she would not do it. After some discussion she ended up doing the double on the one item that I paid 3 cents for, I did not get credit for the bag and when I got to the car I still had a double coupon so I went back inside a third time, got a box of cereal and decided to check myself out on those machines. What do you know? Machines do not give credit for bags either, I cannot complain about the price of the cereal (0.38 cents) but I was sure irritated at the cashier that made me waste so much time and my 15 cents I did not get credit for. At least I bought 5 items for $1.50. So from now one, I will just use my reusable bags without much expectation of getting any credit for them just the satisfaction of knowing I am not adding to landfills with bags that take hundreds of years to decompose.