the culture of giant accesories

[This is the latest installment of BLOG WARS. This rounds topic is "Storage of Your Daily Shit: Guys vs. Girls" In my usual fashion, I had a hard time staying on topic. Feel free to see how Nick and the newly recruited Schanz treated the topic.]




On our way to the grocery store one afternoon, my friend’s four-year-old looked at my purse and asked, “why is your bag so small?” I replied, “because I don’t have much to carry.” He looked at me for a second, looked at the purse again, looked back at me, and shrugged.

It’s a novel idea, isn’t it, carrying a bag only large enough for what you need, and paring down the idea of what you need to mean what you need?

On a normal outing, say shopping or dinner, all I really need on me are my wallet, my cell phone, keys, chap stick, and maybe gum or candy, maybe my iPod. If I’m going out to the bar, my load is even lighter: I.D., some cash, cell phone, and keys, all of which I’ll shove in my pockets (if I’m wearing something with pockets). If I’m going to work or school, I’ve got a messenger bag in which I carry all the above essentials plus books and food. Still, most of the space goes unused. Maybe I’m just a minimalist at heart, but I have yet to figure out why anyone (other than mothers of small children) would need to carry around a purse big enough to moonlight as a body bag. And when I see them, I get dizzy from all the questions and confusion: what’s in there? A small dog? A rack of barbecued ribs? A portal to another dimension? How do you find things? Are you ever afraid of what you might find? Are you concerned you will pick up your purse one day to find a homeless midget squatting next to your lip gloss? Well, you should be. I would be.

Most ladies don’t think about these things, and it’s because fashion trumps function. We need to have at least one ridiculous en vogue item on hand at all times, and since high heels, the perennial favorite of the fashion over function rule, have been shunned as of late in favor of the much safer and more practical flat (safe and practical until you drunkenly slip out of and trip over one on your way down the stair at The Filmore and sprain your ankle. Hypothetically speaking of course.) the giant purse comes into our lives. And just like high heels trick you into thinking you are tall and glamorous when most of us really look strained and awkward, giant purses make you think you look fashionable and important (look at that lady’s giant bag! She must be transporting many important documents and artifacts and is much too busy to make multiple trips! How I admire her!) when really most of us just look like a child playing dress up with her mom’s accessories.

Don’t snicker too hard, fellas. Ladies certainly do not have a lock on clothing hyper-functional in appearance yet wasteful in use. Remember cargo pants? In any of the many many times I’ve seen dudes in cargo pants, I’ve never seen any of them with the pockets filled (unless said pants were being worn by a soldier or survival expert). Why all the pockets if you aren’t even going to pretend to fill them? It’s worse than carrying a man-purse. It’s like carrying 6 or 7 tiny man-purses.

For the sake of full disclosure, I should mention that I’ve worn my share of ridiculous clothing…platform sneakers, pants with fake pockets, ginormous sunglasses, and on and on. It’s our right as Americans. In fact, in some ways, cargo pants and giant purses are commentary on the culture. A loosely related aside: sometimes when I’m working in Frankenmuth, I play this game in which I guess where people are from before they tell me (people from out of town always tell, whether you ask or not). People from Detroit dress like rappers, people from Canada wear sensible layers, people from Southern states dress like they are in the Iditarod. Then there are foreigners, mostly from Europe or Asia (specifically China or Japan). The dead giveaways are the slim figures and stylish, stream-lined outfits. There are no superfluous accessories or unused space. Are our accessories and the ways we carry our daily products a reflection of our inflated egos and waistlines? Is there room for cargo pockets or giant purses in the midst of economic depression?

I’m not sure those are question that need answers. I’m not sure those are even questions that need to be asked. You can wear whatever you want. But I will ask you to consider this: Sunday night at the 211, I got whacked across the head by a giant purse on the should of a very tiny and very careless hipster. Two days later, I got violently ill and have only just left my bed in the past two hours or so. I’m not saying the two are related, but I also can’t prove they’re not.