In the world of covert secret agents, a burn bag is the go-to receptacle for important papers you’d like to have burned rather than intercepted by the enemy. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Secret Agent Burn Bags”
I was thinking about Nicole from Portland’s call about biz bag and her aunts who used that term.
And I think I got caught up on the cryptographic term and thought about burn bag.
Burn bag. That’s when you burn the clothes?
Well, no. In the secret world, supposedly, at least what I’ve read, a burn bag is where you put important papers that literally go in the incinerator so that the enemy doesn’t get them.
Yeah, yeah.
You can’t put them out with the recycling or in the trash.
So there’s got this security officer whose job is to go around for everybody’s small burn bags and put them in the big burn bag and the whole thing goes in the incinerator.
There’s all kinds of check sheets to sign off on and evidence and proof and stuff and even like scraping through the ashes to make sure everything burned up.
So I was wondering if maybe that’s why she thought it came from the cryptographic years, right?
Yeah, it could be.
Because biz bag sounds a little like burn bag.
Right.
What is it?
Burn after reading?
What’s that expression?
Something like that.
I don’t know.
Mission Impossible, right?
Yeah, right.
The stuff goes up in flames as soon as you hear it.
Yeah, right.
The little tape recorder with the reels.
That’s how it really is, I’m sure.
Really.
