Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Shopping Bags
I suspect it’s not a trend; it’s probably something that’s been happening all along and I’m just finally noticing it: but I’m seeing more and more women of style and fashion, and otherwise, carrying around little paper shopping bags instead of a purse. They’ve got a book, some lunch, letters and cards, a broad selection of small items in a crisp laminated sack with a rope handle and some company’s name on the side as they ride my bus or walk the downtown streets.
And when I see someone with one of these little sacks I can’t help but think that she’s got the sack because she lives the lifestyle, she’s bought something there and re-uses the sack as a enduring reminder to herself of the pleasure that commercial relationship has brought her. If it’s a bag from Kiehl’s or Lush, I think of her enjoying her cosmetics. If it’s from the Apple store, I look for the white wires for her earbuds. Stacey’s? Books. Flax? Art. The bag is a window on the woman - one I know to offer a warped, if not actually misleading, perspective, but I attend to it anyway. Those cool civets strolling up Kearney with a tuna sandwich and an Evanovitch mystery in their little blue bag from Tiffany just look more refined, more sophisticated. The Prada bag says, “I paid too much for my purse;” the Ferragamo bag says, “I paid too much for my shoes and I don’t care about my purse.” And that’s cool. The aura of narcissistic consumerism carries through. I see the shopper; I imagine the product.
The downside is, I’m also seeing a lot of women walking around like this using their Victoria’s Secret bags as their personal totes. And here’s the thing: as often as I’m titilated by the notion of some of these women in their unmentionables, it seems that just as often, if not moreso, it’s an image I would be happier never to have been brought to my mind. A few days ago I was unfortunate enough to see a remarkably ugly woman of advanced maturity with her equally hideous overgrown enfant terrible of a daughter together on the bus, standing in front of the exit door, talking loudly and stupidly, wearing too much makeup and perfume but still possessed of an essential vileness that transcended cosmetic amelioration, sneering and complaining and obstructing the free flow of public karma, both carrying large bags from VS overstuffed with the cheap paraphenalia of their tawdry lives - and it made a painful and unwelcome impression upon my overimpressionable self. Ladies, I am glad - yes, glad! - that you’ve found a way to feel good about yourselves all under or whereever it is you feel the way Victoria secretly wants you to feel, but that is no excuse for evoking this kind of imagery in my already overwrought head. I’d been minding my own business and suddenly I can’t rid myself of the picture of your two unpleasant selves criminally overexposed in camisoles and bustiers, still whining about each other’s friends and getting in people’s way and picking biomass from your respective ears and nostrils. The thought was so distasteful to me that I had to go and find a woman with a big shopping bag from BevMo so I could take a nice deep mental draught of the clean bite of alcoholic amnesia. I’m not about to suggest that some people wear their shopping bags on their heads; that would be vindictive and just plain meanspirited of me. But if you have to carry a bag that creates such vivid and disturbing imagery for those around you, please have the decency to offer us a stiff drink while you’re at it. I’d consider it a public service.
