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 I
grew up inheriting all sorts of “unwanted” genes from my family.
Unwanted, I say, quoting the three men in my life - my husband,
dad and baby bro. And one of the so-called “unwanted” things we,
the women of the house (me and my mother), indulge in often is
the shopping for handbags. There I see heads nodding and the
women reading it saying ha! the same story at every household…
Shopping for handbags is almost a ritual for
me. I do it at regular frequency and I need one to match every
single saree I wear and I don’t mind going to 10 stores to find
the perfect handbag. (As long as I get to buy something at every
store, after all, I cannot disappoint the store owner right?). I
have a bunch of handbags of all colours, all shapes and all
materials. And no, I am not a slave to brand names (and that
doesn’t mean I’ll say no to a Parda or Gucci handbag!) and I am
fine with knock-offs, leather, jute and everything in-between.
One day when my mind decided to do some
useless thinking about things I love, I just realised that there
is something common connecting all my handbags and guess what
they are all small. I did not own a single big handbag (shame on
me! Of course, I had a few I had borrowed from my mother for
some occasion and conveniently forgot to return and they really
don’t count). All my handbags are the typical small bags that
hardly can hold my bulging wallet and a few essentials. Some of
them are even smaller; they can just fit my cell phone and a
credit card. And I guess I have always been choosy about my bag
sizes, and my preference ran towards small bags.
But, on the other hand, my mother (and many
others I know of) prefer the big (basket type?) handbags with
lots of zips and side pockets to fit everything they own. I
called it the “grown-up bag”. You can uncover some marvellous
treasures from those bags, anything from a bar of chocolate to a
Band-Aid. It was meant for storing everything anyone would need
at any point of time. From the pain-killer to the pottu attai,
the visiting card of some XYZ to the vision glasses, the swami
padam to the samayal recipe seen on TV and you get an idea what
I am talking about, right?
A few weeks ago, my mother, my grandmother
and I made a stop at one of those Chinese stores in New York
City to buy some handbags, while my husband, dad and brother
stood outside complaining. And suddenly I decided to act
grown-up as I think I am and buy the big basket handbag to carry
everything from my books, assorted paper work I end up taking
home every evening from work with a religious vow to do at home.
(Well it is another story that I never open anything vaguely
related to school and work at home and bring it back untouched
the next morning to work.) And yes, I brought a black big bag,
not as big as some, something stylish and something big. I felt
it was time to act my age and get an all-in-one handbag that I
have always associated with responsible grown-ups like my mother
and grandmother.
I started using it a few weeks ago; it was
fun deciding where to put what and with so much space, I really
did not own much items to put it in. And guess what, my handbag
is a dump today. Having a big bag means you can dump as much as
you can and my handbag has now become a place for all things
missing. I cannot find what I need and every time I put my hand
in to hunt for my ever elusive cell phone, I find something I
have been looking for in the past and couldn’t find it then. It
was then I decided big bags and me don’t work really well.
You see though I might act grown-up or I
might actually be a grown-up responsible adult, my skills do not
run in the direction of having an organised handbag. And I was
wasting productive time that could be used for analysing useless
things and chatting on the cell phone, hunting down things in my
hand bag. The sharp, analytical and engineering mind of mine
(believe me, I am the only person in the whole world who says I
have an engineering mind, people who know me tell me I have no
mind to even attempt to engineer!) carefully analysed that I
spend exactly 7.52 minutes a day hunting for my car and house
keys, another 2.22 minutes hunting for my sun glasses, 1.25
minutes for my calculator (thank God for big scientific
calculators), 2.22 minutes for tissues (that is ample time for
people near me to escape and hide from the numerous virus and
bacteria I generously spread every time I sneeze), an assorted
8.65 minutes hunting for assorted things that are not limited to
throat drops, change for the vending machine, chocolates, paper,
pens, etc., and, most importantly, a whopping 35.389 minutes
hunting for my cell phone. And being the time-conscious grown-up
I am, I decided to empty my bag and change into my usual small
handbags and spend my time doing more things for the betterment
of mankind (like improving immunity by spreading cold-causing
viruses every time I sneeze) and before I did that, I took time
to see what were inside my handbag. Here is the list,
-
My wallet
-
My home and car keys
-
A pen drive
-
A CD case
-
Discount coupon to Bed, bath and beyond
-
Cheque book
-
3 packs of tissues (don’t ask me why I
have 3)
-
My doctor appointment card
-
My lab test results claim card
-
Tickets to the Nityashree kutcheri
-
Sticky pads
-
Trash paper
-
Cough drops
-
Chewing gum
-
3 pencils and 2 pens
-
Hand lotion
-
Calculator
-
And of course my cell phone.
Now ladies, open your handbags and post what
you find there in the comments section. And gentlemen over
there, this is the chance for you to have a peep into the
forbidden handbag dump! Go for it!
- V
http://poohsden.blogspot.com/
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