Table Of Contents

By TAD BARTIMUS

My purse fell over at the Post Office today. This is not something you want to happen to you.

There, on the old oak table everybody in town uses to hastily address overdue bills -- which I was doing -- the contents of my life spilled out. Before I could stop them, helpful souls had retrieved some of the 86 items (if you don't count all the M&M's) I was carrying around with me in my bag.

It is a mortifying experience to have strangers, or even friends, see the physical equivalent of a disorganized mind. I thought of this in the split second before I dived for the purse, and missed.

Here are some things I apparently can't leave home without:

-- A Velcro dog muzzle I thought might stop Daisy from barking in my ear as we drove past cows. She figured out how to get out of it in three minutes flat, but I still carry it in hopes she'll have amnesia.

-- A pair of designer eyeglasses with a fancy sunglasses attachment, not in my prescription, which a friend asked me to donate to the Lions Club eight months ago.

-- A dead cell phone

-- An overdue good luck card for a hospitalized friend awaiting a heart transplant

-- A ticket to Paris I had to cancel last May, which must be re-booked within 52 weeks of issuance -- so far I've carried it through 48 weeks of good intentions.

-- A tiny plastic toothpick and gum stimulator I had no idea I owned.

-- One 2000 calendar, two 2001 calendars and five 2002 calendars from my car insurance agent

-- A Silent Unity "Daily Word" prayer booklet for last June

-- A 5-percent-off Safeway coupon, expiration Sept. 30, 2000

-- A box of 1,000 fingernail-size red glitter hearts, spilled

-- A broken screw from a desk built in 1869, for which I can't find a replacement.

-- Also, 16 ballpoint pens, two without tops; 27 business cards, including eight from Elias the Glass Man; the M&M's, loose; two photos of teen-agers I don't recognize; a seashell in a plastic bag, crushed; a coupon for a free latte, expiration Jan. 31, 2001; checkbooks for three accounts, none with any money in them; a thumb-sized pewter medal stamped with an angel; three Beggin' Strips fake-bacon dog treats, and a dead orange (which accounts for the handbag's recent funny smell)

My purse, in short, is indicative of my life. It holds my necessities, my hopes, my follies, my connections. It overflows with reality and dreams. It is both an embarrassment and a comforting talisman, short on cash and lipsticks but long on projects and mementos.

I was once assigned to do a story on the contents of Queen Elizabeth II's purse. She is never seen without one, usually a dowdy model hanging from a sturdy strap on her gloved wrist. Buckingham Palace, after initially balking, finally disclosed that Her Majesty carried a dainty comb and an embroidered hankie. No money, no pen or paper, no grocery list or credit cards, no M&M's. She had no need of such trivials, for she had equerries and ladies-in-waiting to attend to her wants and necessities.

As I sit here, throwing away dozens of crumpled gas, food, Wal-Mart, book store and dry cleaner receipts, torn movie stubs, scribbled phone numbers with strange area codes, rusted paper clips, and combs with missing teeth, I think how much more interesting it would be if an archeologist, a hundred years hence, stumbled onto my purse rather than Elizabeth Rex's version.

"Ah," she would say, "a true gourmand," as she ate the M&M's, green ones first.

© 2002 The Women Syndicate

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