As I was explaining to college daughter one day or another this week as we went from midvalley to south-y-south-south valley again, here's how it goes:
1. I have a big purse. Verily, perhaps a giant purse. Large-y McLarge the Purse.
2. I fill the purse full of stuff.
3. One day, when I have dived headfirst into my giant bag of doom ("The Abyss"), trying to find some essential thing or other, I break into a sweat, start to feel itchy, and I think, "damn, I have too much stuff in this purse."
4. But rather than clean it out, precisely, I select a smaller bag. The smaller bag will, without fail, save me from my worst inclinations. It will be impossible to have too much stuff in the smaller bag! It's smaller! Hence, less room for stuff!
5. My petite, much lighter bag, dangles lightly from my wrist for 18-24 hours.
6. After which, my smaller purse is inexplicably overloaded.
7. I carry around the smaller purse for weeks or months.
8. One day, when I have dived headfirst into my petite yet still abyss-like bag searching for some essential thing or other, I get sweaty, itchy, think, "damn, I have too much stuff in this purse."
9. I select a big purse. I have a lot of stuff. It will be much, much easier to keep it organized in a bigger bag.
One morning recently, at breakfast with my daughter and grandson, I could not find my Bakugan in my purse.
What's that? you don't carry around a Bakugan, aka a Dragon-Ball, aka a transformer type deal that turns from a ball into a dragon? You better get you one:
Right, back to my purse perplex: I couldn't find my Bakugan. So I took out a check register ("who uses checks anymore?" "Your mom."), sales receipts, a tiny notebook, a tube of awesome colored pencils, lipstick, a pen, and other assorted nonsense. No Bakugan. Where could it be? Who knows. Maybe Bruiser ate it (which was a slanderous thought: I found it on my kitchen counter today.)?
I began tidying up all the stuff I had excavated from the purse, and started to replace it.
"Oh, by all means, put that back," my daughter said, meaning the sales receipts and other meaningless paper.
Anyway, it's time to move to the bigger bag. I was neck-deep in my purse today, trying to find God knows what. Here's what there actually was:
- gray gloves
- a coupon for free popcorn at the Salt Lake Film Society
- a program from the jazz concert we went to on Monday
- a General Education Requirements brochure, from when I helped at Student Express on Tuesday
- a transfer guide to BYU
- an "inspect these documents" thing from my last check register
- a sales receipt from Anthropologie
- a grocery list
- multiple copies of my poem from my poetry group on Sunday (with annotations)
- the program from the Jazz-Sixers game (a couple of weeks ago)
- Target receipt
- T-Mobile advert from Jazz game
- programs from two different church services I attended during the holidays
- a paper with notes for a poem plus my New Year's resolutions
- a Christmas card (from my daughter)
- 5 invitations to my son's open house when he left on his mission
- a check register
- a bank withdrawal slip
- a tiny notebook
- the Jazz ticket stub
- a post office receipt
- another grocery list
- wallet
- reading glasses
- sunglasses
- 4 pens
- colored pencils
- keys
- iPod
- reuseable shopping bag
- about a million kinds of lipstick and lipgloss
- perfume samples
- ibuprofen
- hand lotion
and one Bakugan.
TAGS: handbag, abyss
