What’s in Your Wallet?
My pocketbook is not a purse. Where I come from a purse is a small handbag that you take to a formal event, like a prom. A pocketbook is more substantial. And mine says something about my personality as a survivalist with security issues who likes to be prepared because I never know if I might become homeless, have to sleep in my car, or fend off an attacker. It’s a back pack style, brown leather with lots of compartments to hold things I need and might need.
This morning, before I checked the weekend Sunday Scribblings prompt and saw that it was “I carry,” I had been thinking about the pocketbook that “I carry” or one of a similar model that I buy over and over. The train of thought began when I picked up my back pack pocketbook from the kitchen floor and it triggered a memory of the winter I visited my sister Sherry and her husband Nelson. Dressed warmly in overcoats, boots, hats, and gloves, we went on hike up to the Blue Hill Weather Observatory where my brother Jim, a BHO volunteer who passed away in 2001, has a dedication flag flying in his honor. Nelson videotaped some of the hike, and later when we watched it back at their house, we all laughed at how funny my back pack pocketbook looked strapped to my back and rocking back and forth as I walked. We decided that it looked like I was carrying a ham for Sunday dinner and from then on we called my pocketbook “the big ham, which should not be confused with the full sized hammers, also called “big hams,” that both my sons carried around when they were little, the way other kids carried teddy bears.
Art Linkletter, TV host of “Kids Say the Darndest Things” and other old time shows, liked to talk to kids. He also liked to mingle among his show’s audiences and look into women’s pocketbooks. I don’t remember what the point of that was or what TV show it was a feature of. I was young then. But I never forgot it because ever since I’ve always thought someone could ask or demand to look inside my pocketbook at any moment. Would I be ready? ‘What would Art Linkletter think of this?’ I ask myself when I find something odd and old buried at the bottom where pens and quarters always collect.
I think of my pocketbook as a mini suitcase for every day travel, and if Art Linkletter where to explore the contents of it he would find some rather ordinary things, like a comb, a wallet, a mirror, a chapstick, and lipstick. He might also find a part of my lunch, a container of water, a small flashlight, a whistle, a magnifying glass, and remedies for ills; such as lavender oil, Bach flower remedy, aspirin, and vitamin C. If my pocket book was big enough, I’d probably carry a blanket because I never know when I might be stuck in snowstorm or want to lie on the sand at a beach.
I’m not all that serious all the time, and so I also regularly carry a kaleidoscope and a small plastic container of bubble from the latest wedding I’ve been to. Items like that come in handy when I have to wait in a doctor’s office for an hour or when I run into a cranky child whose day needs lightening up. And I always carry a small camera and a pocket notebook because if I do get stuck in a snowstorm, a doctor’s office, traffic jam, or an airport I would probably want to start recording the event, work on my memoirs, or, at least, write a blog post like this one.
Post Note: I never carry THIS.
November 17th, 2007 3:49 pm
I am still a kid at heart, so if I have a small bottle of bubbles, chances are I’ll use them to cheer myself instead of saving them for a cranky child. LOL
November 17th, 2007 3:56 pm
‘the big ham’ is a hooot! haha Why did Art linkletter do that?? Maybe he was just a noisy bastard!! I think your overloaded Pocketbook shows you’re a woman ready for anything! fun post. :))
November 17th, 2007 4:00 pm
I have these giant bags/purses that I carry around because I’m like you: like to be prepared for every occasion. But it gets ridiculous sometimes. I’ve been known to carry all the usuals (wallet, blistex, keys, lip gloss) but then also yoga clothes and running shoes and a camera and not one but two notebooks, in case I get the inspiration t write a novel while I’m waiting in line somewhere. Speaking of which, I should get cracking on NaNoWriMo now. Michele sent me. 🙂
November 17th, 2007 4:11 pm
I remember those Art Linkletter shows! Fun memory.
I hate carrying a purse or a bag. I like to have my hands free and my shoulders unburdened. But, it’s starting to look like I’m going to have to give in to it – now I need glasses, cell phone and other sundry things in addition to money and credit card. It’s getting to be too much to fit into a pocket. I guess the good news is that I’ll be able to carry a small camera for grab shots.
November 17th, 2007 4:29 pm
Your mini suitcase looks small in comparisons to my mom’s supposed purse. Hers has a handle and wheels to push around. It is almost like a mobile meth lab with all the pharmaceuticals she lugs around in case anyone ever gets sick. It is quite a site really.
November 17th, 2007 4:50 pm
Kenju, I use it the bubbles for myself too, but they also come in handy for kids, you know wanting to win the cute ones over so they will let you kiss on them a little.
Lucy, I don’t remember the reason Art looked in ladies purses. I think it was an audience game and maybe they won something if they had the right item. Maybe Kenju remembers. I’ll ask her.
Smiler, did you notice my pants were purple? Not as cool as the treadmill dancer’s pink ones, but also not too shabby of a color. They are sweats though so I don’t tend to wear them out much.
June, that’s the beauty of a knapsack style pocket book. You’re hands are free! Even before I had the big one, I had a small one strapped from my neck, under one arm so I wouldn’t feel encumbered.
Herb, you never fail to crack me up with the images you paint with words. My pocketbook may look small next to your mom’s, but you should see how I can stuff that thing when I’m getting ready to fly somewhere. And they never see it on my back and so don’t consider it flight luggage.
November 17th, 2007 5:01 pm
Oh I remember that “Ham bag”. Tricia now calls my pocketbook a “Hot Dog Bag”!! Why you ask? It must be the shape of it as is yours. xox PS I never put that many necessities in them….more like money and lipstick.
November 17th, 2007 6:04 pm
Too funny! I carry a sleeping bag, cot and chair in my car but only because those items won’t fit in my bag. You just never know!!
November 17th, 2007 9:49 pm
Colleen, I remember the Art Linkletter show, and I think each day the show picked an odd item that you wouldn’t think anyone would have and then if a woman had that in her purse – she won something. I don’t remember what the prizes were like, though, so it must not have been anything big.
November 17th, 2007 9:58 pm
Mine contains hard candies for kids. I seldom indulge in those but I keep refilling. Sometime I too am surprised about the stuff which are in my pocketbook, as you call it.
November 17th, 2007 9:59 pm
Opps! Got here from Michele today but I would visited, anyway!
November 17th, 2007 10:07 pm
I used to carry a small survival kit with me whenever I would go out walking. We had to compile it for my Outdoor Ed. class in high school, and I just kept it together. Unfortunately it was left in Wyoming. Once I had children, a diaper bag became the perfect excuse to pack in necessary items. Now my back-pack for college is always equipped with a first aid kit, pens and paper, a calculator, books, and other urban suvival gear. I was a girl scout as a kid, and I believe that luck favors the prepared whole heartedly.
Michele sent me.
November 17th, 2007 11:00 pm
Hi Colleen, what exciting things were you doing in Canada? I hope you had a great time, I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately (I’m trying to write about 1987 when I first came to Floyd- so it puts you & Joe & many others in my mind a lot)
Yes, I often wonder about Michele too!
November 18th, 2007 6:23 am
I like the bubbles and kaleidoscope. Great idea.
November 18th, 2007 8:34 am
Haha. Honestly, I would carry a kaleidoscope just because I want to.
If I carry a purse, it’s pretty goofy…the one I love best is this drawstring bag with rainbows, butterflies, mushrooms, snails, and clouds on it that I’ve had since I was 5. Half the time I’m carrying bits of or tools for art projects. Right now I’ve got drill bits and copper-plated nails!
Thanks for your great comments, by the way.
November 18th, 2007 8:43 am
Lucy said, “I think your overloaded Pocketbook shows you’re a woman ready for anything!”
I got an overloaded pocketbook when I was a day-to-day mom who was likely to need the very thing I had failed to stuff into it. Remember those days? Now I’m an unencumbered grandma who prefers to stick a comb in her jeans pocket, a wallet with a little bit of money in another pocket, and my keys … always my keys … in my right-hand pocket. Always and forever there are pens and paper with me, including folded paper clipped in my cell phone’s clip … which I never use for clipping onto a belt like the men do. My folded paper and the pens in my pocket (shirt pocket, when possible) are always available when the muse inspires … or I remember something I need to add to my grocery list. And I quit wearing lipstick 35 years ago, so I’m more likely to have an extra cough drop or two or three in my pocket. Since I rarely seem to need a cough drop when I’m out and about, those usually are given to some poor person who has a tickle in her (or his) throat, someone who wasn’t as prepared as this former Girl Scout! Just last week I was teaching a class and the woman sitting nearest to me was coughing. So I reached into my pocket and gave her a cough drop. Toward the end of the class, she started coughing again, so I gave her another. When we were leaving the classroom, I gave the last one still in my pocket, in case she needed it before she got home. See? Being prepared was a good thing … lol.
November 18th, 2007 10:01 am
How sweet to carry bubbles with you for kids. Mine always has at least 5 tubes of lip gloss. It used to be lipstick but then I got used to those plastic tubes.
I always used the term pocketbook until I heard that women of good breeding would never use that term and it should be purse. So I’ve tried to stop using the word pocketbook when Martin and I travel out of the area.
Someone else once told me that straps meant a pocketbook and without was a purse so who knows….I do know that I never forgot the story when many years ago Martin bought me a Louis Vuitton purse in Monte Carlo and when he made the comment that the bags didn’t have straps (because I normally had straps) she asked “Is your girlfriend a sheep herder?” To which he replied no and she said “Well then she will not be needing the straps.” Ah, a different world. I laugh every time I think of that. Those people used to intimidate me. Now I could care less.
November 18th, 2007 11:37 am
I don’t remember that part of the Art Linkletter shows, but I do remember the show “Let’s Make A Deal” which had the segments about people dressed in all kinds of wild costumes deciding between what was behind “Door # 1” or “Curtain # 2”. As they went to commercial breaks and at the end of the show, while the credits ran, the host would pay people if they had “8 paperclips” or “a yellow balloon” or “a spoon” on them. The things the women in the audience had stuffed in their purses!
November 18th, 2007 12:00 pm
I must be so blah – only credit cards and money and a checkbook, and I never carry a purse such a minimalist
November 18th, 2007 1:26 pm
Great post, Colleen. I get ridiculously emotionally attached to my pocketbooks so that I carry them until they fall apart. The one I have now is a straw bag with flowers that I bought for three dollars on sale at Target. The cloth liner is now shredded and torn. The other day, as I went to pay for my groceries, I realized that my wallet had slipped under the lining so I couldn’t get it out! I had to rip another big hole to access it right there in the grocery line, with amused onlookers staring. That was so embarrassing!
November 18th, 2007 2:04 pm
Oh, my. Can I ever relate to this post. I am forever attempting to “downsize”, only to fail miserably and end up right back where I started. Which is to say, lugging around what amounts to a small overnight case pretending to be a pocketbook.
It’s an awfully difficult habit to break, this need to carry everything I – or anybody else – might possibly need in the course of living life around with me wherever I roam.
November 18th, 2007 4:35 pm
Underwear or panties, pocketbooks or purses. I once had a pale pink suede one that got a stain in the front from getting splashed with an ocean wave. It was actually my sister Sherry’s and I liked it so much I nagged her to trade it to me. And I miss it now like I miss the pair of pale pink pants I used to own.
I love all the great pocketbook/purse stories here!
November 18th, 2007 6:00 pm
My backpack pretty much contains the same stuff as yours….sans those alternative remedies. Maybe I should add those…ya never know what you might encounter in today’s world!
November 19th, 2007 3:19 pm
Confession time … When I said I put everything in the pockets of my jeans now, I didn’t mention that I usually lug around a book bag with book(s), loose-leaf notebook, extra pens in case the one I’m using runs out of ink, checkbook (which I rarely use these days, preferring debit card or cash), kleenex, nail clippers, and all sorts of small stuff. The book bag is usually left in the car unless I foresee a need for any of it.
This evening when I attend my NaNoWriMo write-in, I’ll probably take the notebook into the coffeehouse with me because it has the notes for my novel and all sorts of interesting research stuff in it, but the big blue zippered book bag will probably stay in the car. Since it is so obviously NOT a pocketbook, with all the tablets and books poking out the top, no one is likely to break into my car to steal it. Yes, Colleen, I live in a big town, one where stuff like that happens. I really DO need to move to Floyd.
November 19th, 2007 3:41 pm
Ah. I was wondering how you could really manage to travel quite that light, with stuff only in your jeans pockets. I must say I was envious of what sounded like freedom. But the next best thing in my view is to have a bag that can be carried on your back, leaving your hands free.
June joked to me at the Village Green Opening about being a “bag lady.” Of course she checked out the back pack bag up close.
You must live in a big town/city Bonnie for there to be a NaMo “write-in.” Is that like a meet-up? I don’t know if anyone else in this whole town besides me even knows what NaMo means.
November 19th, 2007 4:20 pm
Yes, Colleen, it is exactly like a meet-up. Only four of us seem to be regulars. The others in the area either are not very friendly or don’t want to take the time because they think as I did before attending the write-ins, that it would waste my time when I could be at home pounding out the next scene. This town did NOT have an official group until a woman, who had been an official Municipal Liaison (ML) in another place, volunteered to be one for us so we could become a group. Next year, when she is not likely to be around, I can become the ML, which I’m looking forward to doing.
For all the rest of you, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, which is an annual event that happens in November.
November 19th, 2007 4:30 pm
It’s great to meet with other writers whatever the reason. Thanks for giving the definition. Here’s a link for it: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano