The Wonder Purse

I come from a long line of women obsessed with their purses. My grandmother is the worst. Her purse is like a tank, and she won’t let it out of her sight. Ever. Even if she’s sitting on the couch, in her own house, she has to reserve the seat right next to her for her giant purse.

I used to be one of those tiny-pursed women, who didn’t care too much about her purse at all. Then I had a baby. Just after my oldest son was born, I bought this amazing purse. It is big without being too big; it has lots of neat little pockets, so I can separate my cell phone and my keys from all the extra baby stuff I started carrying around. It’s a shade of tan that goes with almost anything, and it has a cute soft little pink lining.

But then a few months ago, during a cross country trip to Philadelphia, my son had a little accident, and, needless to say, my purse got peed on. I was devastated. I searched high and low for another, similar purse. I even bought one that was close, but something about the color and the shape didn’t feel exactly right, so I took it back.

Then it occurred to me to wash the purse. In the washing machine. I turned it inside out, put it on the gentle cycle, and hoped for the best. It came out perfectly, looking (and smelling) brand new, and I sighed a huge sigh of relief. (It also confirmed my suspicion, that this truly is the wonder purse!)

So you might expect that, what, with my love for my purse, the inside is super-organized and efficient. Ha! Here’s what I have in there right now (I’m actually taking inventory as I write this post!):

--The usual: wallet, car keys, cell phone, blue tooth
--2 tubes of Alba Cherry Un-Petroleum Lip Balm: I’m not sure why I have two, but I really can’t live without this stuff!
--Purell: Necessary to combat my slight germ-phobia.
--A Toy Story diaper wipes pack: a necessity when toting two kids to any store/restaurant.
--One diaper: I’m not sure why I bother – There's no way I would be able to change my son when I'm out. (He's not a big fan of lying still right now!) But it seems like I should have one anyway.
--Circular Rattle/Teething ring & Sally car action figure from the movie Cars: Great kid distractions while out shopping/at the library/at a restaurant.
--6 crumpled receipts from various stores: I’m sure I stuffed them in there at some point while trying to hold onto two kids and my bags.
--3 Benedryl Perfect Measure packs & 1 epi-pen: My son has food allergies.
--1 tissue: It is crumpled and has clearly been in there a long time, but it is, thankfully, not used!
--2 pens & 1 pencil: It’s good that I have 3 writing utensils and no paper!
--3 expired Target coupons: I’m sure I had these in my purse when I was in Target, and they were not expired, but I had no idea they were there so I didn’t use them.

So as you can see, it may be the perfect purse, but the contents are only vaguely organized and sometimes useful. If I ever had the time or energy I could probably organize it, add more useful items. (This morning while I was out with the kids, I cut my finger, and then I rifled through my purse for a non-existent band-aid. I made a mental note to myself to put one in, which I promptly forgot about until now.) I could discard the old receipts, expired coupons, and the useless diaper. Actually, I sort of thought about it, as I wrote this post, but then I put everything back in, just the way it was, and decided that would be a project for another day.