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| The black hole. See my problem? |
This past
week I purchased a new purse. I have one that is serviceable, although items
like my keys tend to disappear into the black depths, requiring much
embarrassing scrabbling in public and/or small nervous crises. But this is a special purchase: I need a new bag for a trip to Italy.
When I
first started traveling, as a young woman, I was warned to hang on to my bag
(which held my passport and money, if not much else—I didn't have a credit card
for years). Conventional wisdom said: Keep
it tucked under your arm at all times; don't set it down on a counter while
haggling with a vendor; never flash what cash you had. Pickpockets and purse
snatcher abounded, especially in Italy.
I did have
my purse stolen once, but that was in London—by someone who had to climb across
the façade of a building on a busy street to come in through my third floor
window while I was taking a bath down the hall.
I didn't see that one coming.
That necessitated making a police report (a lovely sympathetic bobby
came to the B&B and talked to me in the kitchen over the classic cup of tea),
finding the US Embassy and getting a new passport, and after I'd moved on to
France with my new passport, wheedling a rental car company into letting me
have a car despite the fact I had no driver's license. The French were very accommodating, and I
didn't even have to bribe anyone.
I have also
been accosted by gypsies in France, including one small grubby boy who kept
saying "donnez moi un sou" and was rather annoyed when I didn't. For your information, the sou hasn't been
currency in France for quite a while, and it never was worth much. It had devolved into a stock phrase for
panhandlers. Anyway, I didn't open my purse.
Back to the
bag. The first thing I wanted was a
shoulder strap, a long one so that I could wear it across my body, thus keeping
my hands free. Funny—there aren't that
many bags with functional shoulder straps available these days, although there
are some with very decorative shorter straps.
I also
wanted pockets that zipped—and I got that with a vengeance. The new purse has six outside zippered
pockets and one interior zippered pocket, plus two open pockets, one for the ubiquitous
cell phone. And (drumroll, please) it
has its own umbrella, which lives in its own little inside pocket that snaps
shut. Once I saw that I was sold.
The best
part is that all the pockets and the interior are lined with a bright, cheerful
print fabric—not like my current black pit of a purse. I might even be able to find something (and
will take along one of my mini LED flashlights in case I do need to search)!
The thing
should also be indestructible, because it's not real leather—it's a believable
fake. My grandmother would be appalled: in her world, ladies carried leather bags and
wore leather shoes, preferably matching.
She was a woman who had more than one real alligator handbag (it was a
long time ago, and I didn't keep them). But this handy (and inexpensive) fake
leather bag is something I don't have to worry about. I can drag it through puddles and carry it in
the rain and it will probably fare better than I will.
But it
needs to be sturdy, because my bags usually average about eight to ten pounds
in weight. What's in there? Wallet (ID, credit cards, health insurance
card), small notebook (hey, I'm a writer!), usually a camera, cell phone, keys,
cash (the coins to fall to the bottom and get forgotten), about a dozen pens,
Tylenol, antacids, tissues, often a book to read, in case I have to wait
somewhere, now and then a tablet computer…the list goes on. I think I'm permanently tilted from carrying
this accumulation on my left shoulder for decades. But I'd bet that if I
walloped somebody in the head with it (especially with that nice long strap),
the guy would drop in his tracks!
Sometimes I
envy men: they stick a wallet in their
back pocket and go. I don't know how
they do it.
