There is something fairly humbling about emptying your purse, handbag, pocketbook, satchel, in front of your friends. Most of the time, the owner of one of these handy carry-all bags can empty and reorganize in the privacy of her own home. Thus, no one can see the five pair of eyeglasses one might have happened to put in there. (I really did this – accidentally, of course! I returned from an eight-hour trip to visit my dear mother, and discovered that I had pilfered two pair of her eyeglasses. The over-arching question, “Why did I have three?”)
Recently I went to empty my purse at a friend’s abode so as to make room for an umbrella. Aside from the broken bracelet I’ve carried around for the past two weeks, I had five toothpicks of various kinds residing in my robin-egg blue purse. I had the denta-pic, two Gum flossers, and two old-school wooden toothpicks. All used. Well, really, they don’t take up much room. And if I have a dental emergency, which could include spinach being lodged in my teeth right before my meeting with the Queen, I am prepared! I think my dentist would be proud.