12.30.02
I have a certain handbag-related weakness. If I see a bag that sends my heart soaring, and tugs at my purse strings, I feel compelled to buy it. As you can imagine, I have a fair assortment of clutches, baguettes, slings, satchels, packs, and purses of other sorts.
The general rule with new purchases is that for every one that comes in, one must go out. This applies equally to shoes, clothing, and other accessories.
Lately I have accomplished this oft difficult task by pawning off the discarded items on my sister or mother.
Less relatedly, I have tried to downgrade my bag from a large shoulder tote that holds anything and everything, to a slim handbag of some sorts. A few years ago, I acquired a lovely Nine West "Kelly"-shaped handbag, black, microfiber, and completely packed with pockets and dividers, allowing me to partition off my lipglosses, wallet and cell phone. Periodically I bust it out, pack it as full as I can, use it for a while, and then pack it away in lieu of something larger.
I actually was successfully putting it to use earlier this month, but I noticed that after so many years, it has become shabby and ragged around the edges. Being a woman of substance and style, it doesn't do to be seen with a bag that has seen better days, so I obviously had to replace it.
But whoever knew that it would be such an arduous task certainly forgot to tell me so.
I don't think that I demand too much in a bag. I downgraded from a fat, wide wallet and a checkbook -- which has become mostly obsolete due to the technological advancement of the debit card, and mostly functioned to hold my plastic thingy full of insurance cards and the like -- to a small change purse/wallet that only holds cash, an id, a couple of charge cards, and some change, and a little leather bookish thing that snaps shut and holds all of the insurance cards, business cards, and plastic that was previously housed in the checkbook. I ditched the cumbersome Nokia 5100-series for the more discreet and lovely Motorola t720. Throw in a small pill box, some eyedrops, a tin of hand salve, some lipgloss, a slim pda, a couple of pens, and maybe some sunglasses, and you've got the contents of my purse.
Now, I do like all of the things to be compartmentalized, at least in a "tiny loose items in a pocket and not mixed in with the larger items in the main section" sort of a sense.
So I bought a purse, pondered it, and then returned it.
I went to the store with my purse, tried to put the contents inside the confines of several different purses, bought a couple of them, took them home, pondered them, and returned them.
I think I brought home at least five different purses in all.
And tried out at least 20 in various stores.
I had even given up.
Until I found a sassy little Nine West microfiber baguette, with a zipper pocket to hold all of the random little things, an outside pocket for the lipglosses and pens, and two inner sections for the phone and sunglasses, and the wallet, card holder and pda.
And I even found it at Younkers, so I got it at an exceptionally discounted price.
What's in your head?