The clock is ticking on tax free shopping. Here’s a press release from the District government website:

The District of Columbia will offer its second 2007 Sales Tax Holiday beginning at 12:01 am Friday, November 23 through midnight Sunday, December 2. The Sales Tax holiday grants an exemption from the 5.75 percent sales tax for clothes, shoes, and accessory items. To qualify, each item must cost $100 or less.

FYI: skis, swim fins, roller blades, and roller-skates don’t count as shoes. Drats!

I was running some errands Saturday when I began to feel a bit peckish. No problem, I thought. I have to go to Whole Foods anyway. I can eat there. I wouldn’t buy lunch, of course. I’d compose it from delicious samples.

To sample successfully at the P Street Whole Foods, you go straight to the bakery section and work your way to the front. The bakery’s good for some fresh bread and, if you’re lucky, a bit of Mo’s Dipping Sauce. Then you head to the olive section where, without risking disapproval, you can sample as many olives as you like. Sometimes you even find a quartered quesadilla atop the prepared foods counter.

But for me, the heart of Whole Foods sampling is the cheese section. That’s where I had my first date with Parrano and where I’ve indulged my lifelong affair with Vermont cheddar. So on Saturday, I bucked tradition and beelined for the brie. It was the right move. I found three pristine triangles of soft cheese, two jars of chutney, and a mound of crackers.

But just as I prepared to shovel a cheese-slathered cracker into my mouth, a hand jutted out and grabbed it from me. “Can I help you?” said a man with a supercilious manner, a slight British accent, and a Whole Foods uniform. “Chutney?” “Sure,” I replied, caught and cowed. I took my chutney and bolted.

Now, I know Whole Foods serves an upscale clientele, and I recognize our society is moving towards ever more services. Just last week, the New York Times Magazine included a photo spread called At Their Service featuring a contemporary art conservator who makes house calls, a medical concierge, and a family wealth counselor.

But amid the abundance of Whole Foods, there’s still something to be said for a little DIY action now and then. I’ve always appreciated the store’s lax sample policies, and I consider it part of our tacit deal: I pay too much for produce, Whole Foods throws in freebies sans judgment. If I go in for seconds or thirds, staffers pretend not to notice. I’ve spent years preserving my end of the bargain, and I expect the same from Whole Foods. So, here’s my advice: Ditch the cheese guy and return to the laissez-faire sample style that got me hooked in the first place.

I didn’t think much of it, the first time. Then I began seeing them all over town—women toting two-toned pink Victoria’s Secret shopping bags filled with lunches, books, clothes…anything but underwear.

Old women, teenagers, all shapes and sizes, pink bags in hand. Last week a modest young woman with her head covered by a black scarf. Who would have guessed?

Perhaps, as a female coworker suggests, there are just as many, say, Nike bags doing hauling duty and I haven’t noticed? I don’t think so. So what is the appeal? It seems to be more than utility or ecological consciousness. The bags are toted for a reason, and it can’t be to make me fantasize about the carrier’s lacies. Right?

It seems I’m not the first pervert to wonder. On Yahoo Answers, one respondent thinks it has something to with detachable “crotch panels.”

I doubt it. And so does the clerk who answered the phone this afternoon at the Union Station VS. “I guess it’s just the wonderful color and the name brand that catches their eye,” she says.

Perhaps that’s it. If so, the company has scored an advertising feat. But what if you dig the bags but buy your knickers elsewhere? No problem. If you care little about false advertising, one eBay seller has the bags ten for $9.99.