I am increasingly bemused by the number of women who seem to live their lives tortoise-like with everything but the kitchen sink shoved into their bag which is then lugged around causing goodness-knows-what damage to their shoulders. I have been particularly struck by this phenomenon this week as I have observed people pulling out huge litre bottles of handcream, numerous pairs of shoes, complete make up kits and all sorts of other things. Also, I have been suffering from a really sore shoulder which is probably not helped by the fact that I too lug around a good few pounds of handbag weight. However, I have taken a really good look at my handbag and can’t really see much paring down of its contents for day to day living. What do you think?
Within my handbag I have:
- cotton shopping bag, I am trying to do my bit for the environment
- umbrella, a 365 day a year requirement
- one pair black leather gloves, it’s still nippy even though Spring has allegedly sprung (also handy in my secret life as a cat burglar!)
- sunglasses, it’s also sunny
- 2 x pens, a purple fountain pen for fancy moments and a nice stripey biro which my oldest friend gave me at Christmas and is handy for doing sudokus in newspapers (the fountain pen just splodges)
- Oyster card
- work security pass, complete with hideous photo
- 2 x lighters
- cigarettes, I know I know
- mobile phone
- Blackberry - obviously I don’t need a phone and a Blackberry but the phone is mine and the Blackberry belongs to work (also I have no idea how to drive it)
- pocket pack of tissues
- pocket pack of Wet Ones
- Smints
- keys, complete with highly grubby pig key fob which lovely boy bought for me in Edinburgh
- fold up hair brush
- hair elastic
- mini size deodorant
- note book for those “I must remember” moments
- diary
- 1 x Tampax
- paracetamol and codeine tablets
- nail file
- business cards in holder
- make up case (which I want to change because it was bought for me by one of the leeches and I really don’t need that reminder every day) containing:
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antacid tablets
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mini perfume
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4Head
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concealer
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lip salve
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dry eye drops
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plasters x 2
-
lipstick
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moisturiser sample
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anti histamines
-
lip gloss
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eye liner
Purse (which I was given when I left a job about 10 years ago and is still gorgeous, lovely and Mulberry) containing:
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spare Oyster card, for emergencies like Monday when my Oyster card didn’t make the transfer between weekend and weekday bags
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1st class stamps
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card for One Fish Two Fish which is a really good restaurant in Bath I went a couple of weeks ago
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CIPR membership card
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large 2nd class stamps which are actually fairly useless and were handily mis-sold as normal second class stamps for my Easter cards which were - amusingly - of a tiny size
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Johnson’s priority card
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Boots Advantage card
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Tesco Clubcard
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Nectar card
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newspaper cutting of a random event which happened over 30 years ago but which I inherited from my Grandma’s purse so I like to keep it
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cards from my reiki lady which have inspirational things written on them - I don’t read them enough
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2x credit cards
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2x debit cards
Gosh, that’s a strange thing to do as girls’ bags are normally highly secretive places. But I really don’t see what I can not carry round with me. Admittedly I have a small pharmacy in there but actually I’ve noticed I need to get some Imodium just to cover most medical eventualities - you never know. Okay I have a lot of twos of things and back ups but I am an anally retentive organisation freak so what do you expect?
Update: so after I’d done this, I thought there must be other people revealing the contents of their bags on their blogs and what would they reveal? Indeed there are (see below), and do you know what I found? My bag is a standard as everyone else’s.
