Reverse Mary Poppins Purse

“Gray Leather Bag” courtesy of John Kasawa / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have a reverse Mary Poppins purse.  And no, it that’s not nearly as cool as Mary Poppin’s purse.  Just the opposite.  You know the one that she pulled lamps and shoes out of?  She fit EVERYTHING in there, and when she wanted something, it came right out for her.  Mine?  Not so much.

I also know exactly what I’m looking for. But my purse likes to play hide-and-go seek with my things.  Sometimes it even eats them.

The other day I spent 15 minutes looking for my keys, when they were exactly where they were supposed to be the whole time.  I went through my purse 3 times.  3 times!  I was about to start checking the hallways and parking lots, when my weary self decided to try one more time.  They were tucked underneath the lip of the side pocket where I keep my keys — meaning that when I had reached down into the pocket to check each of those times, I had touched empty space,  while my poor keys were swallowed up by my purse’s bulging inner folds.

Today I think my purse was just plain messing with me.

I had to stop for gas.  I pulled up to the pump and went for my credit card.  Not in its usual baggie in its inner pocket. Oh boy.  Immediately thoughts of “I don’t have time for this,” “I don’t even know the number of my credit card company,” “I was supposed to be squeezing in an early dinner about now,” “I don’t even remember the last time I used it,” etc etc went through my head.  I was pretty sure it was not stolen, though.I did an intuition body check, and I didn’t have any awful feelings in my gut.  I also hadn’t gotten any calls from my credit card company, like the time it actually was stolen.

So, there I was, sitting in my car, in front of the gas pump, and beginning to go through my purse.  The only problem is my car is messy.  So, now I was dealing with both my messy car and my reverse Mary Poppins purse.  I looked and looked through my purse and looked around the front and back of the car and didn’t find anything.  “Ok, Teri, don’t panic.”  One step at a time.I had to have gas.  My car was nearing empty, and I’d heard that it’s harder to start the car when you have little gas.  Since, I’d already had trouble starting my car this winter, I felt no need to test that.

So, I went back in for my little black money wallet.  Not in its spot.  Now, what the heck?  I knew I’d seen that when I was going through my purse.  How was I going to pay for gas?  Part of me wanted to get out of there and do an overhaul of everything I owned, but again, I really, really needed gas; I had tutoring students at two different locations in the next few hours; and on the off-chance I could actually find some method of payment, I was already exactly in the spot where I needed to be.  So, since I’d already pulled everything out of my purse a few times, I moved on to the car.  I gathered up old receipts, Cinch bar wrappers, and other miscellaneous papers, and threw them in a Ziploc bag, — which just happened to be present among the rest of my crazy car clutter.  I pulled my tutoring bags full of books, flashcards, and folders onto the back seat of my car so that I could check under the seats.  Finally, I moved my lunchbag and accordion-organizer-teacher-thingy to the back seat, and lo and behold, there was my card, smiling up at me from the passenger seat.

What the heck?  Weird, but whatever.  I had the card.  Big relief.  I would much rather be out $40 in cash than however much in credit card charges.  Or go through the hassle of cancelling my card and ordering a new one and waiting for a new one.

I got out of the car, swiped my card, got my gas, and got back in the car.  Ok, but now I wanted to double-check for the cash.  I finally found it in the wrong pocket of my purse.  I’d really like to know what the other gas-pumpers were thinking, if they even paid attention the cyclone-ish mayhem going on in the cooling parked car next to gas pump #3.

Sure, you can say that I was tired and probably just hastily put the cash in the wrong pocket.  Sure, you can claim the credit card fell out of my purse or I took it out ahead of time and didn’t remember doing it.

But, anyway, I maintain that someone or some thing is messing with me: my spiritual guides or my reverse Mary Poppins purse.

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