After several years of living and breathing on this planet, I
have discovered something momentous. Men are afraid of purses. I
mean truly, deeply, horrifyingly afraid.
After several years of living and breathing on this planet, I have discovered something momentous. Men are afraid of purses. I mean truly, deeply, horrifyingly afraid.
In fact, I have a theory that men are more afraid of purses than they are of man-eating lions. Or getting bit by a cobra. Or of being seen in a Speedo in public. Yes, men are THAT afraid.
Oh, sure, there are a few brave souls who wear man purses. But I think these are mainly European men and frankly, those are men who voluntarily wear Speedos even when they are far too old and hairy to get away with it. In comparison, a man purse is nothing to threaten their masculinity.
But see, to me, a purse is just a purse. It’s a holder of stuff and most people carry around a lot of stuff. Take my purse for example.
Today I am carrying a smaller purse, mainly because I went on vacation two months ago and forgot to change from my little travel purse to my normal everyday bag. Inside are approximately 570 receipts from trips to Target and Nob Hill, at least 192 receipts from various drive-thru establishments, several scary gas receipts, three different lipsticks, two pens that probably don’t work, a bunch of credit cards, blotting papers (for my face, in case you were wondering), my checkbook filled with checks I never use but also never leave home without, a comb, a few dozen miscellaneous parts from LEGO creations, sunscreen, tickets to every movie I’ve seen in the last two months, my boarding pass from vacation, the keys I’d thought I’d lost to the rental car, my iPod headphones and my phone.
And that’s just in the small bag. As you can see, I need a purse, as do most women. And let’s be real – a man has a lot of stuff too.
But most will not consent to being innovators and walk around town with a brobag slung over their shoulder. In fact, men are so afraid of purses that they won’t even touch a woman’s purse.
If you don’t believe me, ask a man to hold your purse. First, the man will turn white. Then he will look around wildly to see if any other man has heard you emasculate him by asking him to hold your purse.
Next he will turn red and stammer out something like, “for God’s sake woman, haven’t I suffered enough for you? My clothes match and my underwear is clean, what more do you want from me?” And lastly, he will pretend that all his fingers are broken so he cannot possibly hold your purse.
On the other hand, a man who never wants to touch your purse, a man who adamantly refuses to carry a man purse, has absolutely no fear whatsoever in asking a woman to hold his stuff in her purse. I ask you, what’s wrong with this picture?
Look, I feel sorry for men. What with all the stuff a modern guy has to carry they are literally carrying a lot of junk in their trunks.
Frankly, if I had to take everything out of my purse and carry it around in my pockets, my jeans would be around my ankles. And yet, most men would rather literally break the backs of their female companions by asking these poor women to put even more stuff in their purses than succumb to the convenience of a brobag.
It’s crazy. Just get a murse, for Pete’s sake. You don’t have to call it by its proper name. I mean, if Shakespeare were around today, he’d agree that a brobag by any other name would hold as much stuff. But for some reason men resist the man purse. I don’t know why.
Really. Any gender that embraced the fanny pack (and some men, sadly still wear them in a failed attempt to hide their Budweiser bellies) can’t possibly be that picky about a man purse.
And yet they are. Ask any man – even one with a full backpack slung over his shoulder – and he will tell you that he doesn’t carry a murse, a brobag or a man purse. He has a backpack.
And now that I think about it, that’s just fine. I don’t care what you call it; I just don’t want to carry even more stuff around in my purse. And I also don’t want to see men in Speedos, but that’s another column entirely.
