\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0There are only two kinds of people: those who wear purses and those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. The former are called women.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Because of vanity and machismo, men don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t carry purses. The rare men who need to tote their earthly belongings use briefcases, backpacks and attache cases.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0My experience with purses began when a teacher colleague and I took our wife\/wives to the shopping place in New Mexico, Globe Discount City in Albuquerque. This was before the days of big boxes like K- Mart and Wal-Mart.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Before entering the store, my colleague\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife, Magda, asked me to hold her purse, “just for a second, while I go to the restroom.” That “second” became 10 minutes. Not particularly fazed by her request, I held her purse, even swung it around by the straps, the way Pachucos used to swing a chain at they stood on street corners in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Then some pimple-faced brat leaving the store remarked, “Luv yer purse.” It was then that I realized Magda hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gone to the ladies room at all; instead she espied me from behind a plate glass window at Globe and had been enjoying the strange looks I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been getting by people who understandably may have wondered why a man was carrying \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even swinging \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a purse shaped like a banana. Magda, doubled up with laughter, said several people had looked my way. I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t noticed, nor did I have a reason to. Yet, in retrospect, the prospect of a man dressed in a sports jacket, white shirt and tie (we had a dress code at the school and it was a week day), sporting a pea-green purse.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Thinking of ways of paying Magda back, I began considering what the difference was and why a purse on a man would be considered effeminate.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0At home, Bonnie, who pretended to commiserate with me and who let on that she was horrified over Magda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prank, yet appreciated the joke more than anyone, told me I appeared to have a number of unnatural lumps on my body and asked me to empty my pockets. What have we here?
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0We discovered a pack of gum, several keys on a chain, a number of coins, a billfold, handkerchief, a couple of pens, a pocket knife, nail clip and even a small notebook. Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that much stuff qualify a man for wearing a purse?
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But would society permit it? Or would a man always be the target of “luv yer purse” comments by bratty eczematous teens?
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0More revealing than what was in my pockets was the contents of a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s purse. Even more amazing is that no matter the outside dimensions of a purse, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always bigger on the inside. A woman carries the usual compact, brush, comb, lipstick, Kleenex, eyelash curler and nail polish. In addition, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always room for a blackbook and a Barbara Cartland romance trilogy.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I invented something called the Male Bag. But before anyone starts bugging me about how much I made in royalties, let me explain that the design was all in my head. I never tried to get a patent. It was supposed to be an extremely masculine, hard-leather black or brown case that clamps on to a man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belt. I emphasize that the object clamps on, as opposed to any other method, such as buttoning on or being tied on, which would obviously be sissified.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The Male Bag, so named to appeal only to the most testosteroneous men, would accommodate a pair of sunglasses in addition to all the above-mentioned articles.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0My dream of a fortune, and more importantly, my desire to rid men of bulges and social stigmas, was dashed when someone invented something like my Male Bag, a unisex, soft, shriveled, under-sized contraption called the Fanny Pack. Even the unfortunate way of naming this object makes people want to avoid it. The Fanny Pack held no more than a pack of Lifesavers, and worse, it attached itself by having the user reach all the way around and belt it on.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In 2000, I opted for Lasik surgery, which changed many things, especially the way I carry things. Before that time, I wore glasses the thickness of the bottom of a Coke bottle. Surgery meant that I needed glasses only for reading, and low-power glasses are cheap.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Other inventions imposed further conditions on me. For example, it would be unfashionable not to carry sunglasses, so that means two cords around my neck, one for each kind of eyeglasses. But wait, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more. One\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outfit isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t complete without a cell phone as well as that GPS the boys bought me.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0And because everyone who steps on a treadmill at the rec center is wired, I got myself an I-Pod as well, capable of holding hundreds of songs. And recently, Bonnie got me an attractive lanyard for my keys. She said the bulky keys attached to my belt loop were causing pilling on my pants.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0So there we have it: a half dozen cords around my neck, all designed to keep things out of my pockets and to obviate the need for a purse.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0All this new technology has convinced me there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no such thing as a tangle-free anything. After I spent minutes trying to extricate myself from my car, whose seat belt had mysteriously wrapped itself around my GPS, cell phone, I-Pod, key, reading glasses and sunglasses cords, I investigated my quite personal theory: left alone, cords tangle.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Try this: place a dozen flat, straight cords of different textures, thicknesses and lengths in an empty drawer. Make sure no cord or string touches any other. Close the drawer for five seconds, and upon opening it you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll discover a jumbled mess, equalled only by the knotted, tangled, spaghetti-like arrangement around my neck.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Maybe the idea of carrying a purse isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so bad after all \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as long as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s neither pea-green nor banana-shaped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0There are only two kinds of people: those who wear purses and those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. The former are called women. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Because of vanity and machismo, men don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t carry purses. The rare men who need to tote their earthly belongings use briefcases, backpacks and attache cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}