Thursday, October 11, 2007

What's in your purse?

Some people (fashionistas) can tell a lot about a woman by what kind of purse she carries. Well, I see an important corollary to that theory: you can tell a lot about a woman by what she carries in her purse. It's like that credit card commercial slogan: what's in YOUR purse?

When Miller was visiting a few weeks ago, she was very amused by the choice of reading material that I carry around in my sizeable purse. Once upon a time, I might have carried a novel, perhaps something reasonably challenging. Now, if I so desire, I can choose from "Colors!" and "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?"

Yep, a key sign that you're a mother: your purse is stuffed with board books and small boxes of raisins. And a dusty binky at the very bottom, to be used only for extreme emergencies. Used to be, I carried around about forty-eleven lipsticks, but now I have raisins. Okay, the truth is I still carry around a bunch of lipsticks in my purse, just only about six or seven, but I also stuff in the boxes of raisins and board books. At least I only have one cell phone now, though. That helps.

Also, I am never without a package of Wet Ones. And also a small bottle of Purell. I never bothered with these things, pre-baby. I mean, I was a big girl. I could wash my hands in the sink. Now I won't leave home without them. I can actually feel a frisson of panic when I get down to the last couple of Wet Ones in the travel case if I don't have a spare pack stuffed in there, too. Have you ever tried to hoist a squirming, excited 27-pound toddler who's wiggling all three thousand of his arms and legs up to a (sopping wet) sink counter in a public restroom and tried to wash his hands? Uh huh. And then you have to deal with the drying issue. Hot air blowers? Perhaps not. Wet Ones are my friend, my loyal friend.

It's not so much that I don't want to carry around the interesting novel anymore, though. I just flat out don't have room for it, not even in my giant saddlebag of a purse. So my own books live on my nightstand. I've got Don Delillo's "Falling Man" on there right now. And Lucinda Franks' nonfiction "My Father's Secret War." Plus, er, some mindless fluff that doesn't require me to read, er, every single page.

But I refuse to cull out any more lipsticks. A girl's gotta have standards.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A partial inventory of my purse:

3 lipssticks and one lipgloss (I try to carry only one but somehow they multiply!)

2 cell phones (one for work and one personal)

small pack of Kleenex

blusher

small hairbrush

notebook with attached pen

4 extra pens and one pencil

ID badge on School Social Work lanyard

Lanyard with three keys for various offices at various schools

Coupons for grocery or clothing stores or whatever

Fabric glasses case holding sunglasses and reading glasses

Wallet with checkbook

Keychain with lots of keys and IDs for groceries, various stores, and YMCA pass

Keychain with spare car key

No board books or papeerbacks!

No wonder we need big purses and they weigh so much! AND the bigger they are the more STUFF somehow migrates to them!

Diane

Anonymous said...

Amen to both of you! Love, Moma Judi PS I have stuff I don't even recogonize in my purse!

Shab said...

I actually just happened to clean out my purse!

2 noisemaker/shakers

1 teething ring

2 cameras

2 cell phones (one work and one personal)

3 check books (why on earth when I don't even write checks?)

1 board book

some loose change

1 wallet

1 ziploc bag of wet ones

5 pens

scraps of paper

receipts

Are the days of carrying a small purse with a wallet and little else over forever?

Jennifer Larson said...

Yes.

It never fails that when I leave the house with just a few things stuck in my pocket, I desperately need something that usually rattles around in my Big Purse.