Thursday, November 18, 2010

Bag Lady

I love handbags. Not as much as I love shoes, and definitely not NEARLY as much as I love hats, but I do love them. Pre-baby, I'd amassed a decent collection of fabulous bags. My favorite was a sleek red leather number (possibly faux, although I may have actually shelled out for the Real Thing on this one - this was during my pre-veggie days...although who am I kidding? I still buy leather, although it's definitely frowned upon by the veghead community - sorry, friends). It was small but not too small, chic enough for day or night, and just, well, fabulous. I came across it last weekend while cleaning out the hall closet during the Roo's nap - there it was, lying around in a pile of equally fabulous bags, all neglected and unloved.

Since I became a mother, I have become a new kind of bag lady - and not the fabulous kind. Every day I schlep around one of two Gap bags - black or tan - which have become increasingly filled with random crap as the months pass. A brief perusal of my bag today found three boxes of eye drops, three bottles of contact solution, deodorant, a full-size hairbrush, two tubs of sunblock, 87 zillion receipts and a bottle of acidophilus pills, in addition to the usual suspects - make-up bag, mints, comb, keys, phone, yaddayadda.

The reality that this is my purse is vaguely terrifying, because it makes it official - I am becoming my mother. For as long as I can remember, my mother's purse has contained a vast, seemingly endless amount of useless crap, and I would tease her mercilessly about it. "What is so hard about cleaning out your purse??" I would taunt.

Flash-forward a decade or so and now THAT IS MY BAG.

Perhaps one of these days I will take a few moments to shovel all the junk out and replace it with an amazing new bag like Erica found on Etsy. But until then, I will just suck it up and say sorry for the harrassment, mom.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am always sad to see a flattened purse in my closet, underneath a pile of something, knowing it was once loved and admired. Also, my current mom bag is so chock-full of to do lists and receipts that last night I scooped them all out into a CVS bag which now sits on my dinner table taunting me. Not much of a solution.