Accessory

Women seemed to be afflicted with some strange need for the ultimate accessory. There is a fervent and unspoken search for that one perfect object of desire to hang off your arm, that adorable little clutch you feel some strange compulsion to store your whole life in…

And one day this beautiful little purse catches your eye.  Maybe you were just walking down the street, busy and harried and tired after a long day of work. Or maybe you were even out looking for one, buzzing from one place to the next with one or two of your girlfriends, keen eyes watchful for that holy grail of possessions that will surely complete you.   Whatever the circumstance, caught your eye it did.  You’re pulled in by its glimmer like a fly to a lamp. Did it just wink at you?

You. Must. Have. It. But surely such a thing of beauty, with its dazzling color and sparkling studs and fasteners, is out of your reach?  Surely a plain-Jane girl such as you couldn’t afford such a piece of arm candy? Surely not. You’ve learned from past experience how the scenario will go. You reason with near certainty that you will be rejected by its costly glamour, and will end up making a hurried exit, slumping a little in shame.

And yet….

Barely daring to hope, you gingerly lift the price tag. Oh my! It’s so cheap! You are so floored that someone like you can actually attain such a glorious item, you buy it without a second thought.  Bursting with newfound confidence and just a smidge of vanity, you skip out of the store with a new prize in your claws.

At first you decide you’ll only use it occasionally.  It would lose that thrilling sparkle that comes with newness if you just committed to using it all the time, right?  So you dress up nice and take it with you for occasional nights out on the town, smiling to yourself at how complete, and cute, and utterly together you look with it hanging off your arm.  And at the end of each these glimmering evenings you take your valuables out of it (don’t want to wear it out now do we?) and hang it neatly in your closet, looking forward to the next time you head out to show off your new acquisition.

Eventually, you find yourself using it more and more until you never seem to go anywhere without it hanging off your arm. And the more you carry it, the more the little bits of your life start to creep into it. Oh of course there’s the basic stuff you commit to any handbag, small, insignificant things you had left there from the beginning – chapstick, Kleenex, receipts, small change.  But there are also the important things.  Wallet, chequebook, keys, ID – you’ve trusted these precious bits of your identity to this shiny stitched vessel.  Little personal things that you loved - things like that pair of earrings that were a gift from your sister, or that snapshot a friend gave you of good times shared – these things get gradually absorbed into your purse as well.  But you trust it with them. Well of course! You should be able to, right? I mean, you picked it out after all.

People notice it. Some say “Hey, you got a new purse! Oh it’s adorable, it’s so you!” and you smile and glow and feel all warm and happy about the choice you made, the wonderful steal you snagged.

But one of your close friends says “Yeah, that’s pretty cute. Be careful though – I bought one just like that a while ago. Piece of shit completely fell apart on me.”

This irks you. And all of a sudden, just for a moment, you turn into a nasty little person.  Seemingly without your control, a phrase will flash through your head.  Perhaps it was just a simple “oh shut up”, or maybe a “why’s she so bitter”, or possibly even a “jealous bitch”. You walk away in a huff, marveling at the audacity, the gall of that woman to make such a comment about your lovely new purse, and ignoring that little tickle of unease growing in your stomach that just turned into a gut-ache.  

Because you have started to notice things. Admit it you will not, but in your deepest core your are realizing your perfect little clutch has flaws. 

Bits of wear become evident.  The edges of the fabric and vinyl fray.  Those sparkling rhinestones you thought were crystal - they turned out to be glass. Maybe even plastic. Some have even fallen off. Amazingly enough, you reason that it surely must be you at fault.  Oh yes! You know what it is! It must be because you use it too much!  You shouldn’t be so hard on it!

It’s too small? Oh well that’s just because you fill it too full.  You weigh it down so much with all of your possessions and obsessions.

 It doesn’t have enough compartments, so everything ends up in a jumbled heap in the bottom.  You lose little bits of your life in it, they almost drown in it.  But that’s just because your disorganized, isn’t it? Surely if you were less scatterbrained and could reduce all your shameful baggage it wouldn’t be so.

Of course, since none of this is the poor purse’s fault now, you don’t give up.   With noble missions of self-improvement, you press on, determined to make it work with the piece of arm candy you’ve gotten so attached to.

Then it happens.

One day you are just going about your business when the unthinkable occurs.  As you are strolling down the street with your clutch hanging familiarly on your arm, a huge hole rips out of the side.

Suddenly your whole life is spilled all over the sidewalk.  Loose coins trickle down, ringing like sad chimes as they hit the hard cement.   Chequebook, wallet, loose cash, makeup, jewelry – everything, everything spills out and crashes on the concrete.

For a moment you just freeze, realizing what just happened. And then you are brought to your knees. You are crawling now, like a lower life form, pathetically bowed to the ground as you try to gather all the scattered pieces of your existence.  You fish that snapshot out of a puddle, totally ruined.  You find one earring, but alas, the other must have fallen into the gutter. 

People walk by and your face flushes red and hot as you feel them staring at the mess around you.  Humbled and ashamed, you try to pick up the mess as quickly as you can and get out of this awful situation.  Thinking of what a beautiful thing invisibility would be, you just want to go home. 

Realizing after you’ve picked everything up that you can no longer trust that purse of yours with it – it would all be lost again – you begin the long walk back to your place.  Left trying to carry it all in your hands and pockets, you awkwardly amble home as you try to keep it all together and not drop anything. It’s hard.  You realize now how much you relied on it, how much you depended on that adorable, cheap, unreliable accessory.

You finally make it home, awkwardly unlock the door, and reach your bedroom. You lay everything in you arms, all your precious cargo, on the bed.  And the purse, that beautiful purse you loved so much, you stretch open your fingers, and you let it fall to the floor. You don’t even look down.

You turn to you valuables and put them away, set them on dressers and tuck them in jewelry boxes, and then you sit down on you bed.  Your eyes stray down to the floor, and you look at your purse collapsed on the rug.  What used to be your prized clutch just looks tired and crumpled now.  You wonder how you never noticed before how worn out and cheap it looks now.

Seeing it lie there, you would like to imagine that it maybe feels a little empty inside, misses your life inside it just a little.

But you know it’s not true.  The truth is, it would be more than happy to let someone else fill it up and use it.  

The truth is that, really, that purse doesn’t give a damn whose arm it’s hanging off of.

After all, it’s just an accessory.