Humor

My Big Purse

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in Main Line Life 1/23/08)

Scanning the current fashion magazines, I notice with dismay that the trend of gigantic handbags is still with us. Up until now I have resisted getting a purse that could hold the entire contents of my house.

But something happened to me one day as I strode through Saks on my monthly pilgrimage to the cosmetics department for the most up-to-the-minute age-defying potions. I spotted a Big Purse out of the corner of my eye, and it seemed to say, “Buy me now.” I sidled over to it, warily checking out its many looped chains and muscular straps and deep pockets. Suddenly my little purse, dangling so flimsily from my shoulder, seemed to mark me as someone trivial. The Big Purse would confer on me substance and gravitas. I picked it up with two hands (I could hardly budge it with one), and hauled it over to the sales counter where one of the flinty-eyed Barbaras who works there rang it up with a knowing look. It was very expensive, my Big Purse.

Continue reading →

Taking Stock at the New Year

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in Main Line Life 1/16/08)

Every year at this time I vow that I will manage my time better and finally get organized. I have been working toward this elusive goal for decades, yet when I look around me it appears I haven’t made much progress. My biggest accomplishment seems to be that I move things from one pile to another pile, and then I move the piles around. Sometimes I even move the piles from one room to another room where they join – you guessed it – more piles.

My excuse is always the same. I simply don’t have enough time; enough hours in the day to go through the trivial stuff that needs to be taken care of. The stuff you can’t make yourself throw away until you look at it again to make sure you should throw it away. The stuff you save because someday you are magically going to have enough time to get organized. The problem is, I am never going to have more time – none of us are. Every single person I know; man, woman, and even child, is frantically busy, and we all have the same complaint – there’s just not enough time.

Continue reading →

The Day of Living Dangerously

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in Main Line Life on 1/9/08)

The first week of the New Year. I wake up and feel a pang of nostalgia for the last century – those halcyon days before I discovered that everything I liked to do was either bad for me or destructive to the environment. I am so tired of being good.

Maybe what I need is a day of being completely decadent – an entire day where I will do as I please and feel no guilt about it. I will eat no bran, and nothing with the words “lite” or “heart healthy” on it.

I start out with a huge breakfast. Bacon and fried eggs. A piece of white bread toast with real butter. Coffee with the caffeine still in it. Altogether, I am getting a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I will not go to the gym today. No step class or yoga, no pulse monitoring as I try to reach my aerobic plateau. The most exercise I will get is lifting the remote to change the channels on the television.

Continue reading →

The Police Blotter

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in my essay collection Lake Forest Moments)

I suspect that in most small towns, and large ones as well, the most thoroughly read section of the newspaper is the Police Blotter. I love the Police Blotter, probably because I have never been in it. When my children were teenagers I used to say, “I ask for nothing else in life, NOTHING, not even winning the lottery, if I knew that neither of you would ever be in the Police Blotter.” And I meant it.

The most common item in the Police Blotter is teenagers caught drinking. (See above paragraph.) Usually it is someone’s teenagers you know, and even though you know it is the teenagers who did something wrong, you always think about the parents. I always think, those poor parents. I’m sure they feel the same way we all do about avoiding, at all costs, a mention in the dreaded Police Blotter. How will they be able to go to Whole Foods or Starbucks and smile as though their entire family hasn’t been stigmatized? Oh, the shame of it all.

Continue reading →