Before I leave for a night on the tiles, I usually clear my handbag of the the things I won’t be needing. And in the interest of clarity, I should stress that by a night “on the tiles” I mean a night “out and about town” and not “throwing up on a bathroom floor”. Although admittedly, the former often ends in the latter when it comes to my Irish Flu-prone husband. Just sayin’.
Anyway, just the other night I removed many items from my shiny red handbag before stepping out, including:
- seven used tissues
- a wad of unused tissues fused together by a half-chewed biscuit – which probably means I should count them as “used” but just not used in the way in which they are supposed to be
- a nappy (surprisingly unused)
- a golf ball
- seventeen loose sultanas
- 65 cents worth of five cent pieces.
Turns out that I was, perhaps, a little hasty with my bag-emptying. On my walk to the taxi rank later that night, I got closely followed by a man who was either drunk or a little unhinged (or both). Looking back, I can see very clearly now how I might have have thrown the golf ball or nappy at him if he attacked me. Or even offered to check his hair for nits with the comb. Any of these gestures can prove to be quite disarming: most certainly, whenever I approach my children with the nit comb, they run screaming from me.
Anyway, in case you were wondering, he didn’t attack me but those five minutes I spent feeling ever-so-slightly anxious could have been spent feeling Very Prepared Indeed.
It got me thinking about things that have been in my handbag in the past, which have proved to be surprisingly useful. I wrote a little list to share with you all:
- marbles – when being rolled back and forth across a cafe table and through salt’n'pepper shaker obstacle courses, these little beauties can prove a great distraction while waiting for food. Until, of course, small hands turn them into a high-powered propellants and/or an A-grade choking hazards. Which is probably why they had been confiscated and put in my handbag in the first place.
- anything vaguely edible (those loose sultanas and biscuit-encrusted tissues previously mentioned would be included here) – children seem to scream less in public when their mouths are full of food.
- pegs – to hang wet trousers and socks along the back of the pram after unexpected encounters with puddles (of rain and of piss).
- the severed head of a C3PO toy – to be honest this hasn’t proved to be useful yet but I like to think that one day someone will say “Bring me the head of C3PO!” and I will Be Prepared.
And while I was at it, I wrote a list of things that I never seem to have in my handbag when I really need them:
- hairbrush
- gold coin for the supermarket trolley
- inexhaustible supply of patience
- lasso and/or large net
- Advanced Taser M26
Now, some people might say that this post is little more than just a list of handbag contents. But I say to him – I mean them - : You can tell a lot about a woman from the contents of her handbag! Why, celebrities reveal the contents of their bags to all the time in magazine articles all the time!
The only difference between the celebrities and me is that they have special Handbag Stylists to weed out the squashed, lint-covered M&Ms and arrange everything for the camera in a most pleasing manner, thus making them look far less like a crazy bag lady than I do. Oh, plus nobody’s asked me to do this, nor am I getting paid. And, also, I’m not a celebrity.
But they really are the only differences.
Actually I think blogging about the contents of handbags should be all the rage.
As for the lasso, I was informed by my grandpa, who was a cowboy, when I asked him to teach me to lasso, that the rope used to lasso is very thick and stiff and would hurt little ones, and so he refused to teach me because I was planning on using it on Evan who wasn’t yet two but was faster than I when I was just six months pregnant. But even that argument fell on deaf ears. So the net might be more humane.
I’m looking forward to your upcoming post about the contents of your own handbag, faemom.
And I’ll certainly bear in mind your grandfather’s warning about the use of lassos on small children.
Sultanas make the world go round. Really. However I am suprised to find them confined to your handbag NDM. In my case, sultanas are to be found in my handbag, on the bottom of my shoe, on the hem of my skirt (post shoe bottom) and occasionally in my bra.
Ooh, I’m impressed by them being in your bra. I usually only have cake crumbs in my bra, which I only have myself to blame for, really.
As for how widespread the sultana plague is in this household: you may have noticed that this post was about the contents of my handbag. I am saving what’s stuck to the sole of my foot, wedged in the grooves of the carseat and lurking down the back of the couch for future (and equally-riveting) posts.
I am flabbergasted that a mother of boys would not have a single stick or pebble in her handbag! Ndm, are you a fraud?!
Sheesh! I said the contents of my handbag INCLUDED the following. This would suggest a by-no-means exhaustive list. A full inventory would be far too timestaking to do (and would most likely need to involve forensics to identify some of the matter).
It goes without saying that I generally have a large flat pebble in my handbag. And a short length of wooden dowel that acts as a makeshift Ninja Sword.
So quick to judge, mystery V. So very quick to judge.
I recently did the old handbag empty, sort and discard trick as it weighed a ton, as if it was full of rocks. What did I find? Stones. Lots and lots of stones. And twigs,etc etc etc, but it was the stones that really got me. And I’m a mother of girls.
Twigs and stones? Hmmm. Interesting. Very interesting.
Is it possible that you could be in the “nesting” phase of your pregnancy? Or merely preparing to stone the next person who asks you when you are due?
A fascinating insight, NDM.
The Dad equivalent would be the jacket pockets. While preparing to leave work last week I did the usual main ingredients pocket check (home keys, work keys, wallet) in the Catholic style and found a Hot Wheels car, lolly stick & crayon segment. Probably vital survival tools in a Lord of the Flies scenario.
Hot wheels car? Lolly Stick? Crayon?
My Mild-Mannered Lawyer friend would claim Macgyver could make something pretty nifty from those things. Maybe a small firearm or makeshift concrete mixer.
I think your are very brave for even daring to empty the contents of your handbag out in the first place.
I am still waiting for CSI Mummy to turn up to help me sort and test mine (and shine their little flash lights into it).
I overcame the need for handbag cleaning when I got a “good handbag” for my nights out. Now I just pick that one up when I go out and as yet, I have not encountered a single marble, darth vader helmet or harry potter sticker in it.
Yet.
Problem was the red handbag *was* my “good handbag”. I think the last time I used it, I couldn’t be bothered “doing the transfer” the day after and took it with me on the school run.
Which makes the contents even more impressive because they were accrued on probably only a couple of outings (before I switched back).
(Still calling me a “fraud”, eh, mystery v? Huh? Are you??)
A few thoughts here:
– I apparently really do live around the globe from you as I have no idea WHAT half of what you discussed in your post are! ie: sultanas, taxi rank, pegs, nit comb, supermarket trolley (I’m assuming that’s a cart but do you really have to pay for that?), nappy (ok, I know what it is but since I so do not call it that, I’m including it)… I guess there really are differences in our “English”.
– No sand in your bag? Somehow I always have inches of sand in the bottom of my bag and I live NOWHERE near a beach and I certainly do not carry my bag into the sandbox with me… and to add to it, I always have loose baby spoons in my bag which unfortunately are of no use since they are covered with sand.
I do agree… a lot can be said about a woman by their bag and I think I couldn’t be friends with someone who didn’t have more randoms than necessities in theirs.
Thanks for dropping by, Becca!
Now, in the interests of educating you in my vernacular…
sultanas = raisins = the grape equivalent of Robert Redford
taxi rank = long line of waiting cabs and disgruntled taxi drivers
pegs = uh, I dunno… The thing you use to hang up washing with? Next you’ll be telling me you don’t know what a Hills Hoist is. Sheesh!
supermarket trolley = cart thingy. The gold coin releases it from its chains of bondage but you get the gold coin back if you return it at the end instead of a) living in it and/or b) setting it on fire (which seems to be the trend ’round these parts)
nappy = shit catcher
Hope that clears some things up for you (and your kind).
PS. As for sand: while I rarely have it in my handbag, Mr Justice’s shoes are filled with it at the end of each school day, ultimately turning our shoe rack into an indoor miniature sandpit.
oh just his shoes? Geex your lucky. I get it in pockets, in the bed, on the bed, in ears and attached to the scalp – no mean feat given they both sport a #2 from the clippers. Takes 2 washes minimum to remove.
Sand *shudders*
And lord f’s shoes are filled with bark and twigs after school – not sand! Perhaps t’is me who is the fraud (somehow)?!
And we DO live near the beach…
Oh yes I love all this disclosure about handbag contents!
Here in NZ we are very keen on the cashless society, so mine is full of little EFT-POS slips of paper. Also stones, shells, little plastic knotted things my daughter made in when in a craft craze last year, painkiller tablets & sticking plasters for wounds (these 2 last get mostly given to other people, so I feel prepared for anything and the needy are eternally grateful!) Also hair ties for windy days when I don’t want hair in my food (or food in my hair) – yes often eating on the run!