Nothing is more stimulating, or revealing than things that are off-limits, out of bounds, like snooping in someone’s mail, or eavesdropping on gossip or, God forbid, violating the sanctity of someone’s diary. Same thing applies to women’s handbags. I made that mistake once.
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I’d like to say the incursion was unintentional, but truth won’t stretch. It was instigated by an inner compulsion, like the nights you promise yourself to lay off the chocolate before bedtime, only to find you have gnawed your nails to the nub in the futile attempt. The chocolate bar melts as you squeeze it with lusty palms.
My wife and I are sitting around talking. She says, “Would you please hand me my handbag?” Bright men oblige all spousal requests. I am a bright man by training. I do this routinely. It’s an understatement to say her bag is heavy. A bellman wouldn’t touch it for a $100 bucks.
Expletive. “What’s in here?” I ask. The mistake!
“Things. Things I might need. Anyway, it’s none of your business,” she answers.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when something’s ‘none of my business,’ I’m simply powerless not to make it my business. She eyes me with suspicion. I simply shrug my shoulders, do my best pretense to convey, “Who cares.” But it falls flat. Women can see through men in an instant.
For a few days she kept a tight grip on her handbag. But it would soon be left unguarded, not if but when. I waited, slumbering through several sleepless nights, dreaming of the secrets housed in the Veneta bag.
As it happens, I suffer a late-night gastric assault by a Ben and Jerry’s addiction. It drives me into the kitchen for relief. And what do you know, there it is, her handbag, the very object of my preoccupation. Serendipity has its moments. It lay on the table, unguarded, vulnerable. My exuberance boils over.
My trembling fingers touch it tenderly. They caress the exquisitely crafted leather, feel its sensuous curves, trace the silky skin of its texture. My nerves tingle with excitement at the forbidden pleasures the moment holds. A torrent of adrenaline tears through my veins at the intoxicating risk of peering into the inscrutable mysteries hiding inside.
Sanity leaves me stranded. I become powerless and can’t refrain from the compulsive craving to clutch the bag with a passion inexplicable. So intense is my fetish that it devours all better judgment. Like a grubby grave robber, my manic curiosity digs in, exposing the bag’s enigmatic skeletons.
I unceremoniously empty the voluminous treasures on the table. There, scattered before me are the ‘things’ she needed, the ‘things’ that were indispensable, the ‘things’ that were none of my business. In that microcosmic moment Dr. Gray’s eponymous metaphor made perfect sense: “Men are from Mars, and women are from Venus.”
I pick at the pieces, attempting to make sense of the absurd tableau. Such dichotomy of disarray is unintelligible to human logic. A thermometer appears. I recall my daughter telling me that her mom used this when shopping at Neiman’s. Apparently it registers the heat of her intensity in the jewelry department.
In the mix is a pistol. Loaded. It lies next to a ring of unfamiliar keys and a large padlock. Go figure. What’s with the wad of scratch-off lottery tickets? I get the pharmaceutical palliatives and emollients…. Age does have its downside! The colossal wreckage reminds me of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, crafted by an unhinged mind for no apparent purpose.
Reconstructing the chaos into a coherent whole is impossible. The incongruity lying before me is incomprehensible. The challenge at hand is now the repacking of this monstrous assemblage of female paraphernalia. My effort is a miserable failure. The bulging bag refuses to zip. So much for explorations into things that are ‘none of my business.’
The next day she immediately recognizes that her bag has been plundered. Her eyes accuse, her voice is inaudible. I’m trapped, a monkey with his hand in the cookie jar. She removes the thermometer. The air heats up.
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Dr. Gray’s theorem of the planetary distinction between the sexes remains inviolate, proven once again by the simple fact that men can survive with only a fat wallet and a Swiss army knife….
Bud Hearn
August 22, 2014
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