Women’s Purses Explained

Like many American women, I have more than one purse. OK. I have several. American men have a long history of purse phobia. Yes, they fear our purses. A few even break out into a sweat after the ever-present eye roll.

Because I take the MARC commuter train into DC, I have my regular purse (wallet, lipstick, cell phone, etc.) and my “train” bag (everything else I need that would normally be in my car if it weren’t parked over 20 miles away).

Having to juggle the two bags through throngs of commuters makes my runway walk less than smooth. It also makes it tricky to gracefully pull out my access badge to get through the security check point at work.

As I wrestled with my bags one morning, I saw “the” look from one of the male security guards. To cover my fumbling, I explained that “women’s purses have their own alternate universes."

He said “What?”

I explained further (pointing to my train bag): “women’s purses have their own separate universes. That’s why things get lost in there. Just like a black hole.”

He gave out a big laugh and as I went up the elevator to my floor, I felt I scored a point for female-to-male communications. Yes!

What She Said vs What He Heard (volume 1, issue 1)

Several weeks ago the morning train ride into DC had an unexpected “repair” component. I had been sitting in the upper level of the “Chicago” double-deckers reading Our Daily Bread. FYI – MARC has money issues so when other transit systems retire their old trains, they buy them. Since I lived in the Chicago area for almost ten years, I take an extra bit of enjoyment in having Chicago in DC.

This particular ride, one of the regulars was clacking away furiously on his laptop when all in a sudden he jumped up and banged on the loose panel over the luggage rack. I laughed because that was something I would do and was glad I wasn’t the only one. Not thinking twice, I said “You’re a man after my own heart.” Well, my words apparently did NOT go through the “female-to-male”^© translator properly because he looked at me as though I had made an unwanted pass at him!

I know I am not as cute as I was 10 years ago so his unwelcoming facial expression was not a surprise but didn’t make my morning either - in two respects. First, I am not that bad looking that I need to put a bag over my face but second, and the bigger issue, is why did he assume my show of commiseration was a flirt?

Once I got over my mini mid-life trauma, I fished around in my cosmetic bag for my nail clipper and saying a lot more carefully “it’s a good thing I am old enough to have watched the original episodes of MacGuyver. Here try this.” Then, I handed him the nail clipper with an earnest, trouble-shooting look on my face. He looked carefully at me to see if I was giving him that moo face some women do when they are flirting. (BTW – I do not do the moo face.) When he realized I wasn’t, he took the nail clipper, undid the nail file part, and applied himself to the task of tightening up the screws. When he was finished I said “good job” the same way my friend Bobbie says it to her dogs - just in case the female-to-male translator^© was still malfunctioning.

Later in the day, I thought more about the “art” of communication. Even in the 2000’s you will notice no one calls it a science. Anyway, the expression (actually “idiom” if we are being grammatically correct) “after my own heart” is common enough. It’s even used in the Bible. To be sure I didn’t miss something in my education, I googled it and confirmed it is indeed used to express an area of commonality with the other person.

To close my first issue of “She said vs He heard”, I don’t know why he thought what he did. Perhaps he is arrogant or perhaps this is one phrase that needs to be converted to something else before it goes through The translator because I really don’t want other men to think the same thing.