This is not a snake oil medicine show, boys and squirrels, mothers and otters! I'm not selling magic elixirs or tonics. I just want you to step right up and learn how you, yes you, or the woman you love, can get rid of Perfect Purse anxiety.
This cure doesn't have Twelve Steps. You don't have to admit powerlessness over purses, although you may willingly confess that Perfect Purse Anxiety made your life unmanageable.
I used to worry a lot about having the Perfect Purse, or an Appropriate Purse For the Occasion, or an Acceptable Purse Given the Situation, or a Not Entirely Dreadful Even Though Terribly Embarrassing Purse From An Aesthetic Standpoint. I was not alone. Every woman I knew, and even one guy, had the same anxiety. That's why I'm glad to report there is a road out of this stress, and that road is paved with ...
TOTEBAGS!
A totebag tells the world that you are much too busy, and have far too much to carry, to worry about a little thing like a purse. When the going gets tough, the tough stuff their purse into their totebag along with everything else.
The healing power of totebags:
- The beauty of totebags is that they are all gifts and freebies. I don't have to make any decisions. Even the totebag I keep my totebags in was a gift.
- Totebags can restore a sense of empowerment to those crushed down by decades of purse abuse. I get a jolt of powerful electricity every time I walk into Albertsons with my totebag full of totebags. The cashiers and baggers look at me with shock and awe (and try to finagle an extra smoke break to avoid me).
- Totebags nestle within totebags within totebags. You can pull long strings of them out of your sleeve. "Rocky! Watch me pull a totebag out of my hat," says Bullwinkle.
- Totebags are not the possession of the owner any more than children are the possession of their parents or an unmarked umbrella leaning by the door during a downpour is reserved for the forgetful person who left it. Totebags belong to the cosmos.
- Totebags inspire generosity of spirit. You hand off a totebag to any visitor who has a lot to carry, knowing that someone will do the same for you. You are not personally invested in a totebag. Your self concept/ego/identity is not riding in a totebag like a third grade bully in a midway bumper car. You can afford to be magnanimous. Some other store will have a grand opening. Some other public radio station or magazine with reward subscribers.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I just finished reading Nora Ephron's piece about purses in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a paperback I had stuffed into my totebag.
The Totebag Remedy is absolutely Lennon-esque in its simplicity and healthful beauty:
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Gather ye totebags while ye may. Whole Foods is still a-flying. But this same upscale organic gourmet demographic with excess disposable income today tomorrow will be crying and whining into its cellphones.
A book of verses underneath the bough,
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou,
A sturdy totebag that is mine for now,
O, wilderness were paradise enow!
© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder
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