I Don't Carry a Purse, I Carry a Coat

What was it, 15 years ago that I was going to Missouri with my ex and we had lunch somewhere and about 60 miles down the road I realized I'd left my purse in the restaurant with every bit of cash we had in it.

We got the purse and the cash back but it was 120 miles and at least two more excruciatingly long hours added to an already way too long drive while I listened to my ex go on and on and on. I never thought I'd hear the end of it. Course, I couldn't hardly blame him.

That's when I quit carrying a purse. I did an inventory and decided there wasn't all that much in there that I really used. I'm an accumulator. I come by it honest. I come from a long line of accumulators.

For a while I did fine, but the inevitable came. "Do you have any chapstick?"

"No, don't have anywhere to put any chapstick."

Or, "Do you have a pen?"

"No."

Eventually a solution surfaced. I found a coat at work. Someone had left their leather jacket in the law office where I worked. I left it on the coat rack in the waiting room for a good six months before I took it home. I had no idea how anyone could leave a coat somewhere in the middle of January in Gunnison without realizing they'd left it but it didn't matter. They never came back for it and I needed a coat. And it was a really nice coat.

The only flaw was one of the pockets had a hole. I finally had a place to put my chapstick but it tended to get lost in the hole and slide its way around to the other side of the coat. I could have sewed it, but I didn't and still don't sew. Besides, it had occurred to me as the hole grew bigger that I finally had a place to put things.

And boy did I put things in there. I could fit everything I fit in my purse in the coat and I was much less likely to leave it somewhere. My checkbook, pen, chapstick and gloves all fit nicely into the coat through the hole in the pocket. If I needed something I'd simply dive in with my right hand and fish around a little. It was beautiful for spare change. I could hold the coat by the left arm and shake it and all the change would drop over to the right hand side.

I loved that coat. I wore it for years. It still hangs in my closet.

When I moved back down here I got a job as a dsl and satellite technician. While I lived on the Western Slope a new courthouse was built here. The District Attorney had satellite internet through the company I worked for and one day it wasn't working. I was called on site to troubleshoot the connection.

Since the District Attorney's office was located in the new courthouse I had my first chance to see the place. I was a little shocked when I walked in and saw metal detectors. Things had changed here during the thirteen years I was gone but I didn't let it phase me.

Once I convinced them I wasn't bringing in weapons in my tool bag, that I really was there to work on the roof and not cause mayhem they agreed to let me in if I went through the detector. They slid one of those little black trays over to me and said, "Put everything in your pockets in the tray."

By that time I'd been wearing the coat for a good 5 years or so and it was well stocked. I reached in the right hand side and pulled out my checkbook, a couple of lighters and a grocery list from the week before. Reaching further I found a dollar and some change. I dropped all of this into the little tray. I reached in again and pulled out a couple of work orders and a piece of paper with a phone number I'd been looking for and dropped them into the tray. I reached in again and found a lipstick and a chapstick, more change and an emory board. Into the tray they went. The guards at the gate started looking at me funny and a line started building up behind me.

"Um, do you have another tray?" I asked the female guard as I reached in the coat again and brought out a hairbrush. She sniggered at me and slid another tray across the table.

By the time I was done I'd filled four trays and felt a good five pounds lighter. The guards and I all got a good laugh. Needless to say they remembered me the next time I came in although by that time I got smart and emptied the coat in my truck or left it there all together.

So it must have been about four years ago that I hung my coat up on back of the kitchen chair when I got home one day and it was so heavy that the chair fell over. I decided that maybe I could try a purse again. Besides, I'd worn the coat for a good 10 years or more and it no longer zipped correctly and even in the relatively mild winters we have here I appreciate a zipper that actually zips.

Sometimes I miss the coat.