"Do you want a bag?"

the boy at the check out asked me.
"No thanks, I have my own," I told him. Of course, as usual, it was underneath the groceries in my trolley. Will I ever learn to keep the shopping bags on top where they are ready for packing? Probably not. Some people manage it but I don't.
But I do use my own bags. I do remember them. I have been doing it for years - far longer than from the beginning of the "ban on plastic bags".  I have quite a collection. Many of them have had other things in them before hand. Some of them have been advertising material. I have a bright red one which advertises the state newspaper - or rather it should but I have turned it inside out so it doesn't advertise anything. I have done the same with the black bag and the orange bag which have both, at varying times, advertised the local shopping centre. I have left the very sturdy one from the greengrocer as it is. I don't mind advertising that shop and the smiling banana on the outside is cheerful. I have green ones from the time the supermarkets went "green". I also have some nylon bags that fold up to almost nothing at all. I bought those in the local "cheap" shop. I can wash those. I use them for meat and for frozen items - before I put  them in the lime green "cool bag".
I note though that there are still people who will pay for bags. I wonder  how much  it costs them each year?
For years our local supermarkets used very sturdy brown paper bags for the groceries. They were large and I occasionally used one and then recycled it. It was  used as a "cat" bag. We had two cats at the time and they both loved wriggling into the bags and playing in them. One would often sleep in one. Other people told us their cats did the same thing. 
It is my one regret about the bag ban. They just don't have those sleeping bags for cats any more.