Right Out Of The Blocks

I rolled out of bed at 4:30 AM this bee-you-tee-full Sabbath morn to finish the prep for our impending flight to Tucson. Skitter rolled out of her bed already pouty cuz she saw suitcases getting filled last night– and not one of them was hers.

Right before we boarded the plane for AZ this morning, CacTie Bolo o’ the Day was an awe-struck witness to an amazing development at the SLC airport. I stopped in an airport gift shop to buy a $6, 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke, and something cataclysmic happened that has never happened to me before in all of my lengthy adult life. And it’s so unheard-of it can’t possibly happen to me again.

But occur this once, it did. I spied an object in the aforementioned airport gift shop, out of the corner of one of my blue eyes: a PURSE. Not simply a purse, but the only purse I have ever actually wanted to own for myself. I want it. I wanted it immediately. I want this “saddle” purse, if only for the mini saddle bag towards the back and the stirrup on the side. Oh, and the horn looks groovetastic too! Must. Have. Purse!

I don’t know what flash came over me when I gazed in the purse’s direction. It was such an odd feeling– I couldn’t bring myself to buy the artsy creation. But for the hours since that moment, I haven’t been able to stop daydreaming about it. And I have a feeling I’ll end up with that flashy leather bag o’ my dreams.

What is wrong with me, people? I’m too old and set and happy in my neckwear ways to start collecting other things. I don’t have the space or the bucks or the energy for another kind of collection anyway. But a purse? A purse! A purse, I ask you again? Of all things! A purse is so unlike me. I wear pants with bigly pockets, just so I don’t have to drag a bag with me wherever I go. Anyway, I’m more of a backpack/briefcase/messenger bag sort of girl. Golly gee, I don’t hang a purse strap over my shoulder. That doesn’t translate.

But when we return to SLC International, when our vacay is done, I’ll most likely be walking out of the airport to our car with the freshly purchased turquoise saddle purse. And Suzanne will likely walk out with the red one. (I should have known not to show her a picture of me with a snazzy purse. Of course, she’ll have to have a purse too.) Suzanne with a purse makes sense. A purse and I makes me a stranger in the land of my own clash fashion. Would Skitter even recognize me while I’m disguised by a purse? Would I recognize myself? The pigs will be flying again over me and my new purse, that’s for damn sure.