The Bag
by Judith Cullen
© 2018
It was not really what I had in mind when I asked for a
small purse. For years it has been my
habit to carry something clutch-sized, smaller when I could, and have a larger
bag in which I carried all the stereotypical what-nots that the
"prepared" woman is reputed to have at her fingertips: sewing kit,
flashlight, Band-Aids, aspirin, tiny hand tools, battery-operated devices to
fold space and time. You know the
litany. I would carry these supposed accoutrements of womanhood in a larger bag - the small purse inside it - and when I went into stores and such I would
take the purse out and only carry that.
Likewise, if I ventured out and was only going to a single store
destination, say the grocery, I would leave the bag at home and only take the
purse. This was my pattern: agile and
flexible. I had worn out decades full of
large bags, and small purses, with this modus operandi.
I needed a new purse.
The current one had been make-do for longer than I intended, and its
strap (for wearing bandolier style, my preference) had long since broken. I never really even liked the color, an
unimaginatively dull navy that pretended like it wanted to be a light
black. My larger bag was also showing
signs of wear, but it would last a while longer. So, I dared to add the request
for a small leather-like purse with a shoulder strap to my Christmas wish list.
