The black hole that is my wife’s purse

Have you ever stuck your hand in your desk drawer and your fingers ended up in old chewing gum? Or even worse, you cut your hand on an old razor buried in the depth of the junk that had accumulated over the years?

Every woman I have ever dated had purses that reminded me of those drawers, and my wife is no exception. Whenever I ask her for a tissue or a couple of Excedrin pills, and she tells me to get it from her purse, I break out in cold sweat. Every time I stick my hand in one of her bags, I feel like I am sticking my hand into a black hole and that it might come out on the other side in a parallel universe where horrible monsters will get it.

My wife’s purse is like a tiny portable mobile home. If she were dropped in the middle of the Mojave Desert, she could probably survive for weeks on what is inside her magic purse. Do you think I’m kidding? Have you ever seen that old movie, “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids?” Well, sometimes I think that my wife has a shrinking machine hidden somewhere in our apartment, and that if we have been walking around all day she might pull out two armchairs and a dinner table from the dark recesses of her purse and set a three-course meal in the middle of a street.

In all seriousness, my wife is one of the neatest people I’ve ever met. She is not a neat freak by any means, but she always keeps everything clean and organized. Her purse, however, contains receipts going back at least two years, water bottles, medications, oatmeal bars and enough make-up and various make-up tools to either paint or build a house, or both. Many an experienced hiker/backpacker would not be able to fit as much stuff into his or her 5000 cubic inches backpack as my wife can into her tiny purse.

If she ever reveals the dark secret of her handbags to the world, we’ll be rich. Or killed by the government to keep the evil terrorists from finding out how to pack a nuclear warhead into a wallet.