Car Bras
Seriously. I have no idea why those things some people put on the front ends of their cars are called bras. They don’t hold anything up. They don’t give a better shape to the front end of the car. They don’t make the front of the car look larger than it is in reality.
What they do is keep road grime from collecting on the front end. It keeps bugs from accumulating and little rocks from chipping the paint. What it does is protect the front of the car.
So why aren’t they called bibs?
Pushing Up Daisies
As a culture, we have so many ways of saying that someone has died that it boggles my mind: lying on the wrong side of the dirt, gone to his/her great reward, sitting with God, kicked the bucket and numerous others.
If the person was a gambler we might say that he’s gone to that big casino in the sky. I’ve heard a number of variations on that over the years. Or if she was a seamstress maybe she went to the big quilting bee in the sky.
Many of these euphemisms have a slightly humorous bent to them. It’s as if we have to make light of death in order for it to be okay. It’s never going to be okay to die even though it’s inevitable. Death is always going to come at the wrong time whether you are two months old or 98 years old. So why not say it like it is?
Pants Pockets
I love pants with pockets. Pockets help me organize my life. Need a Kleenex. Looky here, got one in my pocket. Need a treat for the pooches I meet on a walk. Well, I’ve got three different kinds in the pocket of my pants. Except that I don’t. Unless I’m wearing jeans, of course. But even then, pockets are not a given.
I bought a really cute pair of denim jeans a while back that had the suggestion of pockets, but no real pockets. It was just a bunch of topstitching. I bought them because the fit was great and they were very, very comfortable. I figured I could live without the pockets. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Why, I ask you, do designers leave pockets out of the pants made for women? I know a woman who wears means sweat pants because she likes the pockets. I don’t blame her. But I can’t do that being as small as I am. I suppose I could try boy’s sweat pants, but then the rise is usually way, way too short. Ouch.
In any case, I suppose an argument could be made that women carry purses and so they don’t need pockets. Men don’t carry purses (except for a little while in the 1980s, boy was that a weird time in our history) so they need pockets. Which brings me to …
Purses
How the heck did that whole thing ever get started? I hate purses. I hate carrying them. But since I don’t have a lot of pants with pockets, I’m out of luck on this issue. And the pockets in most of my pants don’t accommodate my cell phone. Well, at least not easily or in a manner that I consider to be secure. As in not falling randomly out of my pocket without me noticing.
When the weather is cold, I’ll wear a coat that has a lot of pockets. There’s an inside pocket for my phone. An inside zippered pocket for my charge card. Another inner pocket for my list (wouldn’t do to lose my list). My keys go into an outside pocket with a Velcro-secured flap and a Kleenex or two goes in a similar pocket on the other side. There are two reach-in pockets where I put gloves or just warm my hands. And that’s all I need.
Summer is a bother because I can’t wear that coat. Well, I could. But it wouldn’t be comfortable. So I have a small purse that is really no larger than most women’s wallets (not a man’s wallet, those are made to fit in pockets and not purses). It’s on a long strap so I can wear it cross body and forget about it.
But just about every woman I see out in the world is carrying a purse. Some are ridiculously large. I wonder what the heck they have in them that they feel necessary to lug around with them at all times. I could fit the entire contents of my silverware drawer, cooking utensil drawer and junk drawer in some of the purses I’ve seen.
And here’s a weird thing. Even though most women carry purses, I’ve seen a large number of them put their cell phones in their bras. Now what the heck is that about? And with the mention of bras, we have come full circle. I do like to tie things up all neat and tidy. Eh voila!
Maddie's Mom Writes 