Have you ever been at the store checkout with all of your things rung up, a line of people behind you, while you root around in your bag for your wallet and try as you might, all you can produce is a dry cleaning receipt and an old lip balm? You know your wallet is in there, maybe you can even see it staring back at you from underneath who knows what, but you just can’t quite get it. Murphy’s Law seems to apply to purses in such a particular way, that whatever you need (and know that you have), you’ll be able to find everything else instead. Relatable, right? I hope it’s not just me. 

It goes without saying that you can tell a lot about a person by what they are carrying around in their bag. My sole intention for Getting To The Bottom Of It is to tell fun, relatable stories through whatever we are carrying around in our purses. It almost feels like reading tea leaves. When I dump my purse out, it’s a crystal ball of crumpled receipts, breath mints, a wallet…wait, where are my headphones? 

Our very own Elizabeth Todd humored me and emptied the entire contents of her purse to tell me all about what she had on her that day. Elizabeth is a purse extremist. She likes a bag large enough to carry a toddler…or a clutch. Nothing in between. This day was a large bag day. 

Unsurprisingly, she had an extra pair of shoes (the cute ones were in the bag, the practical ones on her feet), things that belong to each of her kids and even a ball that bounced out and rolled across the floor. I say “unsurprisingly” because if you know Elizabeth, you know that she does it all and moves at sonic speed, so her well-loved and oh-so-impossibly-chic Proenza Schouler tote, or rather it’s contents, reflects everything she does in a day. Truly, the entire Victory softball team could skin both elbows and need a snack and she would not run out of bandaids or granola bars. Aptly, her bag looks like she is fun and takes care of people. In between solving problems of the world and running three stores, she’s dashing off to school pickup or looking for her phone that she “just set down a second ago.”

I, on the other hand, love a mid-sized bucket bag. I don’t know what it is, I just never get tired of them. Now mind you, like any self-respecting gal with a shopping problem, I own a variety of bags, but the ones that are the general size and shape of a flowerpot have my heart. In the flowerpot, I feel the need to carry around several pens. Am I signing a lot of documents? No. Am I the person whose face says “I have a pen and I will let you borrow it”? Also no. There’s just something that feels nostalgic about jotting something down on paper instead of adding it to my Notes app where I will never read it again. Penny Post owns my soul and in return I get pens and paper. As someone who pretends to be organized, I also need to have a pocket-sized planner in my bag so when someone asks if I am free for something I can still have absolutely no idea. Then there are the hair clips and many sets of keys, etc. 

Elizabeth’s bag does contain everything but the kitchen sink, and even if she had one of those, she’d have a really good reason for it. Such a good reason that you would ask yourself “Do I also need the kitchen sink?” It appears disorganized but actually contains all of the tools needed to keep the day running smoothly. My bag holds everything that should make it possible for me to be highly organized and on top of things and know when something is happening. Except that it is my bag, and that is just not who I am.

At least there is always a new lip product to be had, an area where we both excel!