Doug Clark: New grandpa has this gift thing in the (plastic) bag

SAN FRANCISCO – The Clarks arrived here Monday morning bearing gifts for the new child.

As I mentioned several columns ago, my beautiful daughter, Emily, recently brought into the world a healthy, sweet 7-pound baby girl, our first grandchild.

Which sent my lovely wife, Sherry, into an affectionate frenzy of conspicuous consumption, buying toys, books and clothing for little Ronan Grace Berry.

Ronan, by the way, is a Celtic name meaning “little seal.” (Hey, that’s what they tell me, anyway.) So Sherry found this cute gray, plush seal that she ordered online.

At the Spokane International Airport, literally minutes before we had to board our plane, Sherry bought a white “onesie” that had “Mt. Spokane Ski Patrol” printed on the front in red.

Nobody in our family skis, by the way, but why let a technicality stand in the way of cute.

As the levelheaded man of the house, I eschewed baby-related items and instead focused on bringing Emily, Shane and Ronan something they (and all Californians, for that matter) can truly use.

Plastic bags.

You know, those flimsy-yet-practical giveaway sacks that we Spokane residents can thankfully still get with our purchases at any drugstore or supermarket.

I stuffed a zillion bags at least into every crevice and side pocket of our suitcases and my computer case.

You should’ve seen the looks of wonder on the faces of my daughter and son-in-law as Bagzilla shambled up to their apartment.

OK, they think I’m nuttier than a Planters factory.

But I’ve been hoarding these things since last September, when California became the first state in the nation to ban single-use plastic shopping bags.

According to brief iPhone research, Seattle did the same thing in 2012, Portland did it a year earlier and San Francisco went bats over bags in 2007.

And this, I fear, is trivial enough to be just the sort of distraction that the Spokane City Council will latch onto as yet another excuse for not fixing the streets.

There’s a bag ban a comin’, friends, mark my words.

To green-minded activists, these plastic bags rank right up there on the Evil Meter with Hitler, nuclear war and gluten.

The whole baggy brouhaha, I believe, falls apart over that “single-use” term.

Horse dookie, I say.

Other than the Kardashians, I can’t think of anything more used and reused than plastic store bags.

Truth is, nearly everyone reuses their plastic bags.

We Clarks can’t be the only family with a bag caddy under the kitchen sink.

My 92-year-old mother reuses her bags for garbage and storing pill bottles. I tote my dirty laundry home from the lake cabin in bags and wrap my shoes in them before they go into a suitcase.

Last week I saw two responsible dog walkers using the bags to pick up their pet poo.

What happens when bags are banished and more shoppers start bringing multiuse burlap sacks to the grocery store again and again?

Ebola happens, that’s what.

OK, maybe not Ebola. But use the same sack month after month and the thing’ll be dirtier than a gas station commode.

Sure, a lot of bag legislating allows for merchants to stick consumers with a per-bag fee.

But why should eco-warriors like me be punished for the fuzzy thinking of others?

My granddaughter is so unbelievably cute I can hardly stand it.

I can’t wait until Ronan gets a little older and learns to talk and they let me baby-sit her alone.

I’ll fill her pretty little head with all of my theories.