It's in the bag

The other night I heard a cell phone ringing somewhere in the kitchen. I knew it wasn’t mine, because my ringtone is the opening riff from “Whole Lotta Love,” cause I’m just cool like that.

I figured it must be my wife’s, and I could hear that she was upstairs in the shower, so I decided to go get it and, depending on whose number showed up on caller ID, answer it and let whoever it was know that she wasn’t available, or just pretend I didn’t hear it ringing.

I finally traced the signal to somewhere on the kitchen table, then realized it was coming from the bowels of her purse. So I opened the purse, looked in and realized I would not be able to find an atomic device in that mess, let alone a small cell phone.

What is it with women and their purses? I actually dug in there a little bit to try and find the phone, and came up with all sort of stuff – receipts from the 1990s, emery boards, mysterious clumps of keys, makeup, tissue, and about $17 worth of pennies and nickels. It looked like a miniature recycling center in there.

A woman’s purse is a mysterious hinterland best left alone by men. My mother used to call hers a pocketbook, but I don’t hear that term much anymore. I can remember when I was a kid, she could reach in there and produce anything she needed. For example, she always seems to have a wet rag in a plastic bag, which she would use to wipe my face before we went into a store or somebody’s house. And if I needed a Band-aid or an aspirin or a cough drop, she’d reach in there like a magician and, voila, pull it out.

I have seen women around my office carrying purses that are as big as they are. And most of the women I see at work are not just carrying a purse, but also a couple of other bags draped around their body. I feel a little guilty sometimes when I get on the elevator in the morning, not carrying a thing, everything I need stuffed into my pants pockets, when some poor 100-pound woman gets on looking like a roadie for The Who, carrying twice her body weight in assorted purses, bags and satchels.

What is in all of these bags? Are these women carrying out secret company documents? Are they smuggling drugs? I just don’t see the purpose.

They like to change their purses a lot, too. I’ll carry a wallet around until it’s held together by duct tape, but they change purses like they change their underwear. My wife will say, “I need a new purse,” and I’ll say, “But you just got one,” and she just says “It’s a woman thing. You don’t understand” And since I’ve admitted that I don’t understand women, I’ve painted myself into a corner and I don’t have a defense.

I could deal with it until one day, she took me into a Coach purse store. Apparently, Coach is a brand of purse that’s not available at, say, Walgreens. I mean, I should have known what I was in for when a brand of purses has its own store.

Anyway, I got bored, as a straight man is bound to do in a store pull of women’s purses, and I decided to just look at a couple of the price tags, to see what this was going to set me back. Holy Moly! “Are we buying a purse or a Toyota?” I asked my wife. I mean, when you have to finance something that you just use to carry stuff around, you’re paying too much for it.

Maybe I exaggerate, but I don’t think anyone will think any less of my wife, or any women, if they carry the same purse around for more than two weeks at a time. Just get a shovel and clean it out once in a while, and it will last you a good long time.