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Smile-breaks

Got Room for this in Your Pocket?

     Last Sunday at church, while everyone was kneeling, I noticed something strange. Colorful lumps of all shapes and sizes were strewn across the seats, spaced just about evenly - behind every other person, except for where the kids were kneeling. The lumps were purses. Straw purses, tooled leather purses, blue purses and cheerful multi-colored purses. In front of each purse was a lady – or girl – or woman. A female. In front of no purse was there a man. Or a boy.

     Once more I wondered, “How come women carry purses and men don’t?” What do we carry with us everywhere we go that men don’t? Or where do they carry it - when they’re not stuffing it in our purse 'cause they don’t have room for it.

     That day I went home and I made a list. Actually, two lists. Men. Women. I wrote down everything that men carry with them. Wallets, keys, change… Then I wrote down everything that was in my purse. My wallet, my keys, some change…

     When I got through, I studied the list. Well, I looked at it. I didn’t study it, because it didn’t take a genius to see that the lists were the same. Except for the lipstick. But that was about it. Keys, wallet, comb, Kleenex, glasses, pen, small pocketknife – the handy gadgets with the miniature scissors, nail file and toothpick in them. Phones – well, those are mostly carried up tight against the left ear. Both sexes.

     I was amazed. We carry the same things. So how do those men do it without hauling a purse around everywhere they go? Last time I tried leaving my purse at home was a disaster.

     Then I analyzed where you would find all these items on a person. For women it was easy – in the purse, of course. For men, I went to the source.

     “Where do you keep your keys?” I asked my husband.

     “In my right front pocket,” he replied.

     “Your wallet?” I asked.

     “In my left rear pocket,” he replied.

     Comb? Left rear. Handkerchief? Right rear. Pocketknife? Right front. Change? Left front. Checkbook? Left rear, with the wallet. Pen? Left front shirt pocket.

     Where I had written “purse” as the container for all the stuff women carry around, I now had the answer for men. Pockets. Which somehow I knew all along, but I just couldn’t believe all those things really fit in their pockets.

     So we women don’t need those bulky purses that hang from our shoulders, clutter up the pews, and get dirty from sitting on the floor when we can’t find anywhere else to put them. We don’t need to dump out the contents of our purses and switch them to another purse that matches what we’re wearing.

     We just need pockets. Not those fake pockets that come stitched shut so they won’t lose their shape. We need real pockets. Left and right front pockets, slim rear pockets. Very slim rear pockets. Oh! And a tiny pocket for the lipstick, please.

     Just for kicks I logged onto the National Fashion Accessories Association’s website the other day to see if they could tell me how this purse thing got started. Sure enough, the history of the purse was right there on the website. It was back before the fifteenth century when purses originally came into style. The first purses were hung by thongs from the girdle and were used to carry pomanders, flint and money – and they were carried by…

     Men. Who called them “pockets.”

     Next time you don’t have room in your purse for that extra roll of film, you know what to do…

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