US is happy in the heat

Tennessee 83, Mercer 63

First Posted: 11/14/2014 I&#8217;m always amazed by what women carry in their handbags. And the fact that men don&#8217;t carry much in their journey of life, turning to women instead and asking, &#8220;Do you happen to have an aspirin? Or a tissue. Or a Band Aid.
And guess what? In goes our hand and out comes the requested object.
Because you never know when you might need&#8230;. (fill in blank with stupid items you are presently carrying in your purse). Horrors! Do you even know what is in your purse?
There is a running feature in US Magazine, spotlighting a celebrity showcasing What&#8217;s in My Bag? The actress or singer will empty the contents of their bag to display the usual wallet and key chain, only to pull out something offbeat like a stuffed monkey for sentimental reasons or a half-eaten candy bar or a movie stub from 2010.
As a matter of fact, I&#8217;m amazed at just how much food is always in everyone&#8217;s bag. Have I missed the memo on the famine? Hasn&#8217;t anyone ever seen a vending machine? Just carry a few coins instead.
A handbag is like a security blanket for women. It&#8217;s a medical bag. It&#8217;s an insurance policy. It&#8217;s more than a fashion statement. For some of us, our lives aren&#8217;t just in our bags; they are our bags.
And over the course of a day, it can be pretty damn heavy.
My mother always prides herself that she carries everything but the kitchen sink in her purse. But as someone who has held her purse, I have to correct her: Mom, the kitchen sink is actually in there. It&#8217;s just at the bottom and everything else is covering it.
Then, there&#8217;s the opposite end of the spectrum, those minimalists whose purse is the size of a toothpick and inside is a toothpick. And that&#8217;s it.
I had a friend who carried the smallest purse in the world. But, she would always reach into that mini clutch of hers and pull out this ribboned scroll that was an astrological chart, unwrap it and then consult the planets as to how she should plan her day.
If it was me, I would have jettisoned the astrological guide for a tube of hand cream and took my chances at the wrath of the gods. But maybe I&#8217;m too practical to want hand cream and too cavalier to just go about my life without stargazing.
But you have to make that fashion statement with just what &#8212; or should I say whose? &#8212; bag you are carrying. The designer craze never goes away. It just evolves from Etienne Aigner to Liz Claiborne, Gucci, Coach and now Michael Kors.
But sometimes it isn&#8217;t the contents of the handbag weighing you down, it&#8217;s the handbag itself.
An ongoing shoulder injury over the course of several months has me wanting to throw out everything in my purse. And then the purse itself. When your shoulder is killing you and you&#8217;re losing your range of motion, somehow even just looking at a handbag can be painful.
So, when I asked the orthopedic doctor, which was the preferred bag of choice, a shoulder bag placed on the opposite shoulder or a satchel, he looked at me as if I inquired as to whether a red handbag is heavier than a black one.
My physical therapist warned me that a satchel would possibly give me Posh Spice syndrome, a phrase coined from Victoria Beckham carrying her purses on the crook of her arm. So maybe that&#8217;s why she always looks so miserable: Her forearm is aching.
The therapist recommended the popular cross-body bag so that the weight of the purse&#8217;s contest are evenly distributed across the body. But then I say you might get torso-itis when the bag hits you as you walk.
Nevertheless, I went for the satchel. I choose nylon because it&#8217;s lighter weight than leather, and then decided I still must clean house on the contents. I&#8217;m trying to wean myself of my low-tech habit of writing everyone&#8217;s phone number on tiny scraps of paper and throwing them into my purse.
I&#8217;ve limited myself to three ink pens, took out the spare contact lenses, downsized my wallet to a credit card case and still kept the hand cream. Gotta have the hand cream.
But my purse is too still way too heavy. So I&#8217;m thinking about tossing out that moisturizer and replacing it with a Milky Way bar instead.

Shouldering the burden: In purse-uit of a lighter handbag