Cleaning out The Bag...

A couple of days ago, Her Bad Mother sent out a call for us all to clean out our handbags, and show our fellow bloggers the contents, however gruesome they may be.

Since I've already told you what my youngest daughter keeps in HER purse (all thirteen of them... yes, STILL...) I guess it's only fair that "I show you mine", so to speak.

So here we go. Brace yourselves, everybody.

The Goddess' Handbag:

Yes, it's huge. I know. Plenty big enough to leave a baby at a railway station in (which I haven't done yet, by the way. But I've been tempted, that's for sure). And because it's huge, and usually crammed-to-the-brim with junk, it's also HEAVY. And the straps dig into my shoulder, which causes pain in my already achin' back, but what can I say, people? I'm a slave to fashion. Har har.

Okay, top left to right:

1. One puppy-dog bookmark, belonging to Child Number Two. I guess she finally finished the book she was reading.

2. $1.50 in Canadian Tire Money. The next-best thing to completely useless, because whenever I buy ANYTHING from Crappy Tire, it's always either inappropriate, or broken, and has to be returned.

3. My prescription sunglasses. Don't leave home without them.

4. A pamphlet about the new "Smart Meters" that the Ontario Government is attaching to all of our houses, so that we can go online and find out exactly how much electricity our family is wasting every, single, goddamn second of the day. Great, ONE MORE thing for me to obsess about...

5. My IPod. Love, LOVE, LOVE.

6. My red-hot shiny cellphone. A gift from my husband last Christmas. I think he was hoping for some steamy phonecalls at the office, but with three kids with supersonic hearing and brains like little tiny tape-recorders trailing after me at all times, NO SUCH LUCK. My ringtone is "Clair de Lune" by Debussy, by the way... My mother was ecstatic (she often laments about my decidedly "unclassy" taste in music, among many, many other things).

Okay, back over to the left, now for the second row...

7. Way, waaaay too much gum. But I NEED GUM, to keep the blood flowing to my brain as I chew. Trick I learned in university, while writing essays and exams. Sometimes, gum is the only thing keeping me awake at the wheel of my car. Just don't tell the OPP.

8. My wallet. We won't go in there.

9. I have no idea what this little yellow stick-thing is. My kids tell me it's got something to do with a Littlest Pet Shop toy that one of them purchased a long time ago.

10. One Tim Horton's straw wrapper. And one Tim Horton's straw, IN wrapper. Since I usually find at the end of the day that I'm toting at least two bottles of half-drunk apple juice around in my handbag, having ONLY THE STRAW AND WRAPPER in there is a breakthrough. It means that at least I made it as far as the recycling bin, just not as far as the garbage.

11. Miscellaneous lists and receipts. The lists go as far back as the cottage... I am an obsessive list-maker. If it ain't written down, it ain't happenin' people.

Take two. Left to right, from the top:

12. Three bottles of nail polish. I actually didn't know I had the two bottles of OPI in there... The dark purple Revlon colour is the one I had put on my toenails yesterday. It's called "Plum Attraction". Woo-woo. The receipt for the pedicure is there, too. Twenty-five bucks to get my sanity back?! Bargain of the century if you ask me. Imagine how much psycho-therapy would cost as an alternative.

13. The grotty little bag that all my makeup is supposed to fit into. Hah.

Back to the left again...

14. My purple ballpoint pen. I always write my lists in purple ink. Don't ask.

15. Contact lens drops. Even though I don't have the time or patience to put my contacts in anymore. And when I do, I'm usually carrying an evening bag, and not this wretched sack that actually CONTAINS a bottle of lens drops. Naturally.

16. Three containers of hand cream, and one jar of lip balm. Three containers, because I can never find the hand cream if there's only one container in there. And the lip balm? Unused, because I can never find it.

17. Emergency make-up. Two liners, one lipstick and a compact. I can never find them, either, because they're never in the make-up bag I carry.

18. EXTRA STRENGTH TYLENOL, a Mother's Best Friend. There are only about three left in there. Thank you for reminding me to fill it up.

Left again...

19. One large zip-loc bag full of various and assorted wires. Wires to attach my IPod to my car, my camera to my computer, my cellphone re-charger to a power outlet... You get the idea. It's just easier to keep them all together in my purse, rather than leaving them lying around, and then discovering that someone has used them to fix the lawnmower, or make a craft or something.

20. One open box of Smarties. The currency of childhood. It is solely for the purpose of bribing my children, I absolutely admit it.

21. A little pile of cookie crumbs, one fossilized ju-jube, a blue smartie that escaped the box, and a Canadian quarter.

22. Hard to see, but there are three pairs of earrings here. They were taken out of my ears on three separate occasions over the past six months or so, and tossed into the handbag when I visited my hairdresser. I didn't even miss them, but it's nice to have them back.

23. My keys. The husband calls them the "jailer's keys". Not far from the truth, actually. On the key ring(s) you will see a bungee bracelet (to hang on my wrist), a lanyard (to hang around my neck). Now that I've got more kids than I have hands (and a brain like a piece of swiss cheese), it is absolutely necessary that I be able to attach my keys to my body. You will also see a beaded lizard, made by Child Number One at camp this summer. When I take my keys out of my handbag, it's about five pounds lighter to carry.

And that's it, folks. Confession over.

It wasn't so bad, actually... and I've got a clean purse, to boot.

Now, don't you DARE ask about what's in my diaper bag...