Recently, I’ve taken a lot of flack regarding the size and
tonnage of my handbag. Not surprisingly,
most of the flack has come from the other sex – that one that can’t find the
butter in the fridge and has yet to come to grips with the purpose of a dirty
clothes hamper.
Personally, I adhere to the “Purse as Weapon” school of
fashion, mace being illegal in this country.
Which is why I carry a large envelope shoulder bag. Very large. Imagine
the Roseanne Barr of purses. One swing from the shoulder can knock a
runaway truck back 30 paces. In fact,
I’ve been known to clear entire subway cars in rush hour.
But the most effective use of a purse I’ve ever seen is this
story from back in my bank manager days…
One day, a young man with a gun tried to force his way to
the front of our lineup to make his demands known to the teller. Unfortunately, he chose to do this on the
day the Old Age Pension cheques arrived in the mail, and worse, the person he
chose to cut in front of was old Mrs. Pereira.
Now, Mrs. Pereira may have been only four and a half feet tall, and
probably weighed only 90 pounds, but so did her purse. And being somewhat shortsighted, she may
have failed to see the gun, but she certainly did not miss the sudden appearance
of a very rude long-haired youth stealing her place in the line.
Being old school, she did not call for help; instead, she
commenced whapping him over the head with a particularly lethal black patent
handbag with heavy brass corners, while kicking him smartly about the
shins. The hapless bank robber was last
seen howling and limping from the branch, followed by a verbal stream of
indignant Portuguese.
Which only goes to show that one should always walk softly
and carry a big purse.
No comments:
Post a Comment