#549 Tuck and Tote

A failed relationship or two ago, I was emptying my pockets.
And emptying.
And emptying.
My then girlfriend came into the room with a superior look and threw her purse on the floor.
The next day before I went to work, I reversed the process.
I loaded and loaded and loaded. Comb. Business card wallet. Regular wallet. Checkbook, calendar, keys. Change, folding money. My then girlfriend dashed into the room, picked up her purse, and asked if I was ready to go in a tone that indicated she had been so for the last hour.
I was still looking on my dresser making sure I hadn’t forgotten to load something. Bullets, pistol…
I think I’m going to write a new self-improvement relationship book like “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.”
Except I’ll call it, “Men have Pockets, Women have Purses.”
Because it really does seem to be a heriditary thing.
When was the last time you saw a woman with her pockets full? When was the last time you saw a woman that had pockets?
Live functioning pockets, not stitched-down decorative ones on jeans so tight you can make out the outline of her tattoo underneath.
I think it all goes back to those caveman times when men had to strap on a couple of weapons for the hunt, so they would be lean and streamlined and could slip through the snags of the forest without encumbrance.
When they killed the game, they could haul it back in one piece. Or in its own skin, scraped and butchered at the site of the kill—all the inedible chunks left behind for the scavengers to wish they had a recipe for sausage.
Women, meanwhile, needed a basket or bag. Gathering berries may not be as dramatic as bringing down a slow squirrel but carrying them is a real chore with just your hands. A few meals worth requires a pouch of some sort.
So pockets and purses were born.
And we have our wild ancestors to thank at the next rock concert when women leave their purses in the car.
And men try to find a little more room in their bulging pockets for a lipstick.
America ya gotta love it