Friday, October 08, 2004
Capacious
Today I have the pleasure of not taking the bus to work, not even going to the office at all - it’s the Annual Meeting, held this year in the state’s first capital, Monterey, to which I will be driving shortly for a full day’s worth of commission meetings and cheaply-catered lunches. I’m rather looking forward to it - for the drive, the variety, the company (I rarely spend much of my day in the company of other humans) - and because I don’t need to spend too much of my time toting sack. I do like my sack, but it can be unweildly on the bus, as I reflected to myself yesterday evening as I came home with paperwork for the meeting (heavy) and a new box of syringes for the diabetic cat (bulky). And this put me in mind of a conversation I had not too long ago with pea.
When I went through my sack-shilling phase not too long ago I found myself in conversation with an incredulous pea, who couldn’t believe the size of my sack. She went and got her bad self a medium sack, but I stuck with the large model. Grande. Gadol (that’s hebrew!). My sack isn’t just a style icon; it doesn’t just hang low across the small of my back like some swingin’ sporran - it’s also big as the great outdoors. “But why?,” I seem to remember her asking me, “why do you need so much bag?” (Pea expressed some squeamishness about using the word “sack” ((or even “saq")), though she seems comfortable with “purse,” which always seemed to me to be a vauguely lascivious word itself. Such is life.)
My answer to her, to you, to the world at large, is that I have a condition which obliges me to go big where the ol’ sack is concerned. I suffer from - or, perhaps, am endowed with - fluctuating sack volume. Some days my sack is nearly empty, drooping flaccidly behind me. Some days it’s full to bursting, my precious contents peeking out from under the straining flap. Sometimes the big load I’m carrying is feather-light - pillows, packing material, empty tupperwares from lunch. Sometimes I’m toting a small volume that’s dense beyond belief, computer parts and fruit and ingots of goddamn kryptonite.
Volume can fluctuate significantly from one end of my day to the other; weight and volume have only the merest correlation. Therefore, I need a sack that can handle whatever I throw at (or in) it. I won’t challenge its capacity most days. Sometimes I’ll feel that it’s mocking me with its gaping emptiness. But on the big days when I’m riding the bus heavy as grief and fully laden, I’m always grateful for my enormous sacapacity.
Time to walk the dog, find some pants (I might reverse the order on those ones) and go to the meeting. Have a great weekend, and don’t overstuff.
