Life used to be simple. I had a very slim wallet that contained a drivers licence and a cashflow card. It fitted in my pocket causing only slight increase to butt size, one cheek larger than the other. With car keys in front pocket I was sorted. But due to earthquakes a mobile phone has become an essential item in Christchurch, my key ring seems to have umpteen keys on it and despite still owning a slimline wallet it is BURSTING at the seams with blinkin cards that every shop, service provider and freaking Tom, Dick and Harry keep issuing to me. And they all think they're so important for doing so.
Everywhere I go people try to give me a card to carry, to represent my loyalty to them. I go to the gynocologist "here's your swipe card, for your privacy"; I enrol the Rabbit in swimming lessons "here is your access card, don't lose it or we'll charge you"; I go bra shopping "here's our loyalty card, each purchase earns you points". Farmers (a large department store) give me two cards to carry, the library gives me one and one for the Rabbit, the AA (Automobile Association) give me two, one of which I have NO IDEA how to use. I have a Fly Buys Card and two different supermarket discount cards. And that is to name a few. I have more. And seriously, all these cards are handed over like I'm being done a favour, like they're an indication of a unique and special service to me. When all they are is a pain in the arse. And what's more, increasingly, they're creating a need for me to own a handbag!
I'm what could only be described as 'the scruffy mum'. Hair pulled back, jeans, polo neck, almost never made up. I'm the casual kind of comfy-mum. It's hard to believe I used to trot into the office in a suit carrying a briefcasey, satchel thing. Handbags and I just don't fit together. But I'm beginning to find that I can't carry a bulging wallet, a bunch of keys and a cell phone without dropping them or worse, leaving one of them around the place. Recently I had to traipse through a shop looking for the wallet I had put down to have a closer look at something. And last week I received a phone call from the supermarket from my own mobile. It turned out I'd left it on the ice cream counter. Pregnancy hormones are interferring with my tracking ability. I hate to say it, I think I NEED a handbag.
Which brings me back to the point that they're just so ugly. And phenomenally expensive. And either stiff and awkward and designed to be trotted about with or large and floppy and kind of trashy. You know the ones I mean, all PVC and slutty. It's hard to find a casual bag, that isn't ridiculously big, that doesn't scream "I'm a handbag" and combines practical with casual, with simple, with style, with cheap. Quite a predicament huh? I looked at hand bags ON SALE on the nzsale site today. Seriously, no word of a lie, the prices ran from $220 to $3,000 for handbags and I cringed at every single one of them. And their prices. It's absurd! Well, apparently other women find it normal. It's so confusing!
So I think I'll see if I can last a wee bit longer without a handbag and keep an eye out for the elusive perfect, cheap bag. I may also need a wallet that fits all the millions of store cards I have (for my shopping pleasure) so that, instead of pulling all cards out at once in the search for the right one, I just get the right one. Even better, I could be able to identify them a little easier so that when I purchase petrol I don't hand the man my card which shows him where I buy my underwear and so that I stop handing the librarian my 'privacy' card for the freaking gynocologist. Privacy indeed! And I can imagine that as this pregnancy continues, I'm only going to get more clumsy, more forgetful and more prone to NEEDING a handbag. So I suspect the only solution is, I'm going to have to become a real woman!
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