The Family Pack Mule

This summer, my family went to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. (they won) Before entering the stadium, we were herded through security for a bag search. While approaching the guard, my heart raced. The anxiety had nothing to do with any possible contraband that he may have found in my bag, but due to the volume of items that he would have to dig through in order to determine if I was dangerous to others, or just my back.
When I got to the guard, I opened the giant overweight purse and cracked, “It’s a Mommy bag.”
He laughed. “I’ve seen a lot of those.” He shuffled through a few of the items as if he were afraid that his fingers might get caught in the mousetrap that I have set at the bottom, and then waved me through the gate.
At that moment, watching all the other women weighed down with heavy bags masquerading as purses that carried all the essentials for their groups' outings, I realized that I belonged to the social class categorized as the family pack mule.
This really came home a few days later while in the midst of piling into the car to make the next appointment on our agenda that was supposed to be a vacation. I bent over in the back seat to clean up a mess that no one made, when the Mommy bag landed upside-down on my head and the contents spilled out. Both my husband and son had a good laugh at me trying to collect marbles (yes, marbles) that had rolled into the parking lot.
Back when I was young, shortly after the cavemen emerged and started making their homes in huts, I was free to carry my few essentials (mirror, lipstick, comb, car keys, and wallet) in a chic little handbag that hung in a carefree manner by a thin leather strap from my shoulder. After I got married, chic dropped off my list of priorities. Like a pack mule on a wagon train across Death Valley, I care more about surviving an outing than I do about looking stylish.
It started with my husband asking me to carry his checkbook in my purse. He didn’t have room to carry it in his pockets and since men don’t wear suits with inside breast pockets anymore, the only place left to carry the checkbook was my bag.
Next came his car keys; and then the mail.
Then came our son. That was when I was assigned the task of carrying everything we could think of to bribe him into acting civilized in public.
Sometimes stuff is simply tossed over a shoulder in my general direction with hopes that it will land in the family saddlebag. After years of this, I gave in and got a big old ugly Mommy bag with an industrial strength strap to attach to my body for transport.
What can you find in a Mommy bag? Well, as of this moment, here is what is in mine:
One zipped-up section of the Mommy bag is reserved for my stuff. It contains cosmetics in case I meet someone I want to impress and need to clean myself up.
I also have a vial of holy water. No, I’m not Catholic, but a friend of mine is. She gave me this holy water shortly after meeting my son. I still wonder if she was trying to tell me something. I haven't seen the friend in quite a while, but I still have the holy water in the Mommy bag just in case I need it.
In another section, I have a cell phone that doesn't work. It was a freebie that came with our service. I also have a second cell phone in the Mommy bag. For that one, I paid a hundred dollars upgrade because the freebie didn’t work. The new one doesn't work right either, but that’s another blog. I do have one that works. It's in my son's bookbag at school where he is not allowed to use it. I also have a cell phone battery that I got in hopes of making the first cell phone work, but it didn’t help. That's why I had to get the second one.
I also have two sets of airplane tickets and luggage receipts from a year ago when I picked up my sister-in-law and niece at the airport. I don't know how they ended up in my purse. Both of them are Mommies. They should have their own bags.
I have a pair of scratched up sun glasses that I carry in case I can’t find my good pair. Right now, I don’t know where the good sunglasses are.
I have a recipe for Yukon Gold Potato Salad with a grocery list on the back. There are a lot of old shopping lists in the Mommy bag. I never know what to do with a shopping list after checking out my groceries. I don’t want to throw them away at the store, so I put them in the Mommy bag and they all gather together at the bottom along with the pens I can never find.
The Mommy bag also contains three pairs of 3-D glasses from when we saw Ice Age this summer. As soon as the movie was over, my husband and son handed me their glasses. My son didn't want them thrown away because he wanted to keep them to remember the movie. Considering that they have been in my purse all this time and he has never asked for them, I guess I can toss them now, or I can save them for in case they ever start making road signs in 3-D.
I have a pack of tissues. I don’t know where it came from. Now that I don’t need it, there it is. How much do you want to bet that I won’t be able to find it when I need it if I leave it in the bag?
I also have two crayons and a dozen pens in every shape and color.
Remember when people used to write checks, before they started using debit cards? Every time I needed to write a check, I would have to ask the clerk for a pen because I couldn't find one in my purse. Yet, I could always find crayons. How is it that I could find one of two crayons in my purse, but never find a pen? Go figure.
In case I ever get lost between my house and the mailbox, I also have a map of West Virginia. This was left over from our vacation. I also have a balloon with the US flag on it, a can of bug repellant, a bag of M&M’s (those will be gone in five minutes), and two of those complimentary bags of nuts that they give you on planes. (They don't give out nuts anymore, so you can guess how long these babies have been in the bag.)
I don’t like nuts, but every time someone somewhere takes a flight I end up with a bag of nuts in the Mommy bag. Nobody eats them while on the plane, but instead of insisting that the flight attendant take them back, they hand them to me to store in the Mommy bag in case our wagon train is attacked by coyotes who do like nuts.
Well, I have learned that everyone has an important job essential for keeping the family going. Mine is pack mule. That was okay until I saw an old western and discovered that the pack mule who carries all the supplies is usually the first one that the coyotes attack.