MILLION DOLLAR POCKETBOOK

I own a few different pocketbooks -- nothing fancy and nothing flashy and certainly nothing trendy.  There's no way on Earth that I will ever buy a Coach bag or a Kate Spade or a Vera Bradley or Givenchy...  Why in the name of all things sane would I spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on a damn pocketbook?  I buy them on sale ... sometimes at Kohl's ... maybe even Target ... usually DSW in the clearance section marked down 70%.  I think the last two pocketbooks I bought at DSW came to a combined total of $29.98.

There are times, however, that a pocketbook, regardless of its price, can make me feel like a million bucks.

All summer I carried a smaller pocketbook with a long strap that I could sling over myself to prevent purse snatchers from getting to it unless they intended to take me right along with it.  I've spent the last few months cramming most everything I need into that little bag, usually opting to leave the wallet at home and just bring essential cards and cash stuffed into a zippered pocket of the bag itself.   It totally worked, even if I could never find anything in it, though I knew it was there.

Take today, for example.  After lunch I suddenly develop a killer headache.  I fumble around in the tiny pocketbook, knowing damn well that I have everything in there for any disease known to man.  You need a vaccination?  I got it.  Malaria?  Covered.  Diphtheria?  Sure enough.  Poisonous snake bite?  Stick with me.  Severed an artery?  I have enough tissues with me to soak up a battlefield.  In my blinding pain today, though, I cannot find the container with the Tylenol in it.  My pocketbook is too crammed with essentials to find the mega-essentials.

I come home after work and find the larger brownish purse.  Oh, sure, it doesn't match a whole helluva lot of my stuff because I wear a lot of black, but tough shit.  It has five different zippered compartments for hiding and organizing, and it has two outside pouch pockets so deep I can even fit a medium-sized notebook into it.  (Yes, writers do that kind of crazy shit like stuff paper and a hundred pens into their pocketbooks.)

I'm so happy I can find stuff in my purse now.  It's like moving into a bigger house.  It's like packing a larger suitcase.  Why, it's like ... it's like ... IT'S LIKE OPENING THE TOP BUTTON OF YOUR PANTS RIGHT AFTER THANKSGIVING DINNER.

(Not the exact one ... but close)

Yup, I changed over to my larger, cheapo, old model, semi-fashionable Tyler Rodan pocketbook.  I can find stuff, I can pack it full and still see the bottom, and I have room for everything from my wallet to my phone to my notebook.

A pocketbook for 75% off that only costs me $15 and fits all my shit?  Yup, I feel like a million bucks right now.