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Sometime in the first six months after I began working the counter at my first bookstore job, I started offering each customer a sack for their books. I say “started” because no one in the Pacific Northwest or their right mind says “sack.” We say “bag.” Actually, we say “bayg.”

“Sack” began innocently enough, a subversive way of making a polite conversation vulgar. “Do you need a sack to carry your books home?” I ask.

“Come again?”

And I repeat, “A sack, to put your books in?”