Once, I Saw A Man Wearing A Purse

Yesterday I saw a man wearing a purse.

I say “wearing” because he wasn’t holding it like most men do. The strap was slung over his right shoulder and it hung evenly between his hips and his upper torso. He pushed a shopping cart across the parking lot with, I assume, his wife or girlfriend walking beside him. I can’t help but think of the contempt I have for holding my wife’s purse. For some reason I loathe the moment when she is trying something on and she will extend her arm out towards me with that thing dangling from her hand in all its feminine glory. She doesn’t even ask me anymore, it just happens, and suddenly I am standing there in the middle of the store holding a purse. I quickly look around to see if anyone is looking at me, and I usually stand very still, as not to attract attention to myself. Sometimes my wife forgets to take it back, and she will walk away to look at something else. I panic because heaven forbid I take one step with it. At the moment I am a coat rack. I stand in one place and hold, but if I walk, I am at a new level of commitment, I now have some kind of ownership. I often find myself scrambling to hand the purse back to my wife.

I'm not a "manly" man.
I mean, I’m a man, just not the kind the prides himself in eating copious amounts of meat, farting around the house, watching football and shooting at stuff. I don’t even compare to the likes of Red Green or, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor in ‘manliness’. Chuck Norris is out of my league! This is something they would complain about, not me. I have no idea why I fear my wife’s purse so much. Perhaps I have been taught at sometime in my life that holding anything ‘feminine’ will make me feminine, as if inanimate objects have gender transforming abilities. Besides, men wear “shoulder bags” all the time. Maybe it is simply that I don’t want to be helpful to my wife…Ouch.

Perhaps it’s more than just holding a purse. Perhaps it’s about being a servant to our wives regardless how others may see us. Perhaps it’s about overcoming the ridiculous feeling that the whole store is watching you hold a purse. I’m not sure, but the next time my wife hands me her purse, I think I might try it on. You never know, it might go really well with my shoes