ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 133
Bagging It
Women in the past twenty-five years have demanded a lot of changes,
and at the same time a lot of new demands have been put on them. Not
necessarily the most important, but certainly one of the most insidious
request has been for women to give up their purses in favor of something
more organic, like briefcases or pockets. At the same time, trend setters have
gone so far as to entice men to add this item to their wardrobe, presumably
to show us women how ridiculous handbags really are.
Little has been accomplished to change either women's or men's habits
in this area Men can't understand the need for a purse because of their
longstanding habit of handing all their clutter to the women in their lives to
carry in their handbags. And women, having received their first "training
purse" as soon as they could stand alone, cannot imagine life without one.
A woman should never have to justify the contents of whatever she
hangs from her shoulder. However, when my own purse got so heavy that
one shoulder sagged a good two inches below the other, I began contemplating the cost of an orthopedic bra and decided that I, at least, should know
what I was packing around.
To preserve my privacy I waited until everyone else had gone to bed,
then dumped its contents out on the floor and started an inventory. The two
combs, brush with no handle, 11/2 inch thick address book (We do live in a
mobile society.), note pad, seven pens (five of which worked), extra glasses
and paperback novel were certainly essential. I am a writer, after all.
I had a harder time justifying the library books. There were three of
them, two from towns I vaguely remember passing through as a kid. I had
never read any of these books, and I usually don't even admit to being able
to read when they originally became overdue.
Empty gum wrappers littered the bottom two inches of the purse. I
didn't need to count them to realizer d slipped from oral fixation to out-andout addiction in the gum chewing department.
I also found the five year diary I started the summer I was ten and have
been trying to fill ever since, a scarf I didn't recognize, and a set of playbills
from ACT performances that my best friend Alice and I had season tickets
to in 1982. At that point I gave up the inventory. It was clear even to me that
my handbag situation had gotten out of hand.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders (still aching from the day's
hauling around of all that stuff) and decided I could kick the habit. I figured
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