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# Carrying the day just isn’t my thing
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/carrying-the-day-just-isnt-my-thing/
- Published: 2007-04-26T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:56:04.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

I COULD NEVER BE CHARACTERIZED AS a tomboy: My color vocabulary is extensive, I shower nearly every day, and few things thrill me more than flipping through female porn magazines like Cosmopolitan and O while getting pedicures. But ultimately, the girly-girl set and I go our separate ways, due to my aversion to pocketbooks.

First of all, I’m so out of touch with the world of pocketbooks that I still call them “pocketbooks,” not “purses.” I don’t think other people have called them pocketbooks since my Grandma Nettie in the 1950s.

Unlike most women who won’t leave home without a fully loaded bag, I’d be thrilled if all keys could be replaced with some sort of fingerprint technology system, and I could get my driver’s license and credit card numbers tattooed on my wrist. Short of that, since high school, my pocketbooks of choice have been those little woven Guatemalan coin pouches — 2” by 4” brightly colored zippered clutches in which a tube of Blistex, a hair elastic, driver’s license, Band-Aid, credit card and a single car or house key fit perfectly. All of life’s necessities (minus the chocolate), really.

The It bag is an endless source of fascination. You know, the pocketbook that can be afforded only after selling a kidney that is in fashion for a limited period, basically until which time some all-knowing, yet unseen, trend task force deems that anyone near It should be ashamed of ever having had an association.

No one ever talks about what happens to the It bag when It becomes the bag formerly known as It. Does It get thrown away, hidden in a box in the attic until the next generation is ready to play dress-up? Donating it to a thrift shop or charity will give It to a woman in a Third World country who can’t afford a subscription to Vogue and, therefore, doesn’t know that she’s carrying a pocketbook that is so last season.

The logo bags, the ones with the paid advertisements stamped all over them, are usually the first to come in and out of style. Louis Vuitton pocketbooks — the Murakami with the pastel lettering, the one with the cherries, or the latest with the tortoise chain, leopard print and patent leather — usually make the arms of society belles for a few months before they go by way of the outlet centers for a smaller yet still significant fortune. (Full disclosure: I own the Louis Vuitton Keepall travel bag, but that’s different, because it’s a classic. It just is.) There’s the Birkin bag — of the five-year wait list fame — whose glory faded somewhat when it accompanied Martha Stewart daily during her perjury trial.

I’m secure enough to admit to moments when I’ve coveted It bags. There was the boxy Kate Spade “Sam” black satin-finished, water-resistant nylon pocketbook I used in 1999 (even though it went out with the Macarena in 1996). Somewhere in the deep recesses of my parent’s house is buried an old purple LeSportsac tote with the blue trim, circa 1983\. But I ceased believing in the notion of fashion accessories with a function in 1995, when watching the Neville Brothers perform in Rockefeller Plaza in New York and the wallet was lifted out of my Coach mini leather backpack with the gold clasp, the thief eventually using my blank check and credit card for a luxurious Bahamian vacation.

I own a Ferragamo alligator bag that’s so lovely I make a point to admire it often, although it rarely leaves its little protective cloth bag, not to mention the front door. I want it to last forever, so I just can’t justify using it more than a few times a decade.

Of course there are some occasions in life that something more formal than a Guatemalan coin pouch is required. Which is why I’m blessed with a husband, who when marrying me unknowingly inherited from my parents’ job of carrying my Blistex and driver’s license during special occasions in which I wear dresses or skirts with no pockets.

Part of me wonders how I would ever be a truly worthwhile mom given my propensity to live life sans pocketbook. After all, my mom can solve the world’s problems 10 times over with what she carries around. Her collection of bags are magic, like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag — whether you need it or didn’t even know it existed, chances are it’s inside her purse.

Still, somehow men manage to make it through the day — and life — with just simple wallets in their back pockets (murse, manbag and man-purse users excepted).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 26, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/042607.pdf?ref=smdp.com)