My Man Bag
The man bag has seen its fair share of criticism of late and based on my experience I feel a personal responsibility to fight its corner.
Gone are my days of rummaging through the infinite pockets of my outfit, desperately trying to find the various possessions I’ve assigned to each one. Money – johnny pocket, passport – inside jacket pocket, Oyster card – breast pocket, and so on. Amongst all of this confusion I would forget which pockets the items were meant to be in and, in some cases, forget what I was looking for altogether.
I was setting myself up for failure. It was impossible for me to go out for an evening and wake up with everything I left the house with. It was as if I was being stalked by a black hole. The number of phones, Oyster cards, I.D. cards I was going through on a monthly basis was no longer acceptable, it was hitting me where it hurt most - the wallet. If I woke up with a wallet to hit. Little did I know the solution was right round the corner.
It was a Saturday morning and I was reliving the previous night's debauchery over a fry up with my friend Yolanda at a local greasy spoon café. Minus my cash card and passport.
The previous night had been legendary but the loss of my essential possessions put a downer on the whole occasion. Yolanda understood and pointed out that she, and the whole female race, simply carry a ‘handbag’.
I thought about it, but a handbag wasn’t really me. Not my style. Not even a ‘Chloé’.
I was worried that, despite our history, Yolanda had gotten me all wrong. I felt the need to explain what side of the fence I was on, but that wasn’t what she was getting at. We finished our breakfast, paid for by Yolanda due to my absent cash card, and she marched me to JD Sports where she introduced me to revolution that is the ‘man bag’.
At first I was dubious, slightly offended even. Had my problem of losing things escalated such that I needed to walk around with a handbag? All of my friends would ridicule me, I'd be a laughing stock. Yolanda assured me this wasn’t the case. This was the answer to all of my problems. In a towering display of self-righteousness, she grabbed the first one that caught my eye and stormed to the counter, man bag in one hand, handbag in the other.
Clearly, I was to have no choice in the matter.
Once purchased, we sat on a bench outside the shop where she made me empty my every godforsaken pocket until all I had left was in the bag. “Now all you have to do” she said, “is make sure that you don’t lose the bag!” I knew this could go either way.
On the one hand, if I lost the bag I'd lose everything.... but on the other, I now only had one thing, not twenty, not ten - just one thing I had to remember. A weight was lifted from my shoulders, and an even bigger space freed up in my brain. I couldn’t thank Yolanda enough. I didn’t care what my friends thought, what the public would think, things were better than I could ever have wished.
My plague of misplacement is now in the past. I still lose the occasional phone or Oyster card, but it’s nothing like it was. Now I pity the guy next to me on the sofa rummaging through his twenty pockets, desperately trying to find his wallet. Accusing everyone of stealing it, getting himself in a paranoid mess, for it’s so easily avoided.
So, god bless the man bag. May every man make it a necessity to own one, regardless of whether it’s ‘in’ or ‘out’ this season. It’s not a fashion accessory, it’s an essential in today’s modern jungle.
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