You may recall a heated exchange between the Tommys at the end of last semester. [Here it is]
*note - with links, if you hold the Ctrl button when you click them it should open in a new tab instead of taking you away from the current post*
Well, papers were written, books were read, and winter break was relaxed during. During that time, however, the Tommys remained in conflict until one fateful morning at the household of Centieme and Garcon. The whole family was ready to drive down to visit some family friends (and the apple store in Richmond which was mildly crowded a few days after Christmas). The problem: American Tommy had gone to the gym that morning with his mother and somewhere between waking up and returning from the gym his wallet had gone missing. Florida Tommy sprang into action retracing the steps of his meatheaded, absentminded counterpart while French Tommy smugly watched on saying “if it was in your purse you’d know where it was” while American Tommy said something like “Tommy angry, Tommy want wallet” and Abbey started looking for the 800 number to call to cancel our credit card.
Long story short (not too long, just involving several phone calls to mom and a roughly hour-long concerted search party with all of my in-laws) I had left my wallet in my pants pocket. Le woops. This incident confirmed something I had known all along but had suppressed behind a façade of fantasy-football-playing, beer-drinking, violent-movie-watching, good-old-Amurrican masculinity. I had regressed to referring to my school purse as a backpack and my poor, awesome French purse had been relegated to the sack within which Abbey carried her keys when she went on a bike ride. Every time my keys stabbed me in the right thigh or my wallet created a painful sensation in my right buttocks I briefly thought “you need your purse back” before being corrected by a voice boldly stating: “this” Well, losing my wallet followed by losing my patience with any and all sentient beings in my presence was the reality check I needed in order to finally proclaim:
The Purse is back.
It has a compartment for my wallet. My keys. My chapstick, a pen, my cel phone, and a book. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty my pockets are free at last. Again. This purse also is, providentially, the exact dimensions necessary to hold the kindle fire that my parents got me for Christmas and has since become an indispensable tool for graduate study (more on that in the coming weeks as Florida Tommy is dragging his feet in completing his feature-length blog debut). After two full weeks of carrying a purse in addition to a school purse (and on Wednesdays a gym purse) I believe the purse is here to stay. Social norms be damned. Again.
Thanks for reading.
