But each time I pause, each time I turn around like a purse zombie, as if something is literally pulling me bodily toward the display, I get a dull, sick feeling in my gut…because the truth is I don’t WANT a purse. I don’t want to carry around a sack of stuff, always slipping down my shoulder flipping searing hot coffee onto my arms, or throwing my back out, or being something I am constantly afraid of losing or having ripped off.
And don’t we, as women, carry enough baggage? Offspring? Old relationships? Glass ceilings? Regret? Women have always lugged around too much. What we carry has to symbolize how much money we have (Coach, Prada), or the knockoffs if you can’t afford the real status symbols. And what do knockoffs say? They scream: Wow, I don’t have much money, but I can fool a certain percentage of the population whose opinion I don’t even care about because they’re not in the know enough to know it’s a knockoff (big dummies!) but hey, it’s better than nothing!
We carry purses because there is so much that the world expects of us. To keep our makeup fresh, our hair perfect, our nails chip-free, our orifices smelling minty fresh. Besides, where else would we keep our XXXLong Waterproof Mascara, our Arctic Cloudberry Nourishing Day Cream with Age Defying Capsules, to say nothing of our Plump Crazy Lip Puffer and of course our Smart Shade Concealer (30spf) with Nu Insta-Glo Bronzer.
Besides, it looks to me like purses are growing. Mommy purses are back. Excuse me, but why do I suddenly want a gigantic purse? How many blackberries do I need? Or is this just status again? As in: I need all this room because my life is so busy and exciting that I can’t possibly fit my stuff in these small purses that don’t throw my back out? Sorry, but I don’t want a purse that weighs more empty than mine does full.
And why are we always searching for the perfect purse? Because we get it home and it just…doesn’t…quite…work. The cell phone hangs out strangely or the compartment for it is so tight that the camera is activated and takes movies of the inside of our purse, thus is dead the very moment we need it, say when we drive into a creek or are desperate to reach our ex after a few designer cocktails…don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about…or the makeup bag is a bad fit or the compartments/as/wallet is a disaster of grand proportions. In one purse (measuring 8” by 5”, for crying out loud) I counted 23 compartments…for what?? There is definitely something labial about the whole thing.
