While rereading my Easter basket post I was reminded of yet another occasion when my sister usurped a prized possession. Madonna* is three years older than me and as such, was always the first to know and do anything. She was a teenager before I was. She got to shave her legs before I could. She wore makeup before me. She taught me a lot of things. She graciously let me listen to her Wilson Phillips tape once she was through with it and the sound quality had faded. She introduced me to grunge and bought me my first cd which she would sometimes allow me to play on
her cd player. And because tweens will be tweens, she began toting around a purse full of lip smackers and “hide ‘em” tampon pouches shaped…just like tampons before I did.
About the time I wanted to start toting as well, she had been through several stylish, pleather, bulky purses of her own as the fashions had already changed of course. Again, I was the lucky recipient of a cast away hand me down purse. Thick, dark blue pleather trimmed with brown, pleather handles, two for hand carrying and one, long, wide strap for shoulder usage. It zipped open, wide and boxy, to reveal a dark, dusty, fruity-smelling interior. The most awesomest part was the extra compartment
under the purse. That’s right, I said u n d e r. There was another zipper circumventing the entire circumference of the bottom region of the purse. Once it flapped open there was a mirror attached to the underbelly of the purse and little pouches sewn into the flap to hold your most valuable makeup accessories…which you could then apply using the ever-so-handy-and-useful mirror that came…with the purse! Why anyone would design something where your most expensive and prized possessions would be forced to carry the entire weight of whatever the crap girls find to put into purses, underneath a mirror no less, which must also bear the burden and not break all over those prized accessories, is beyond me. However, this was a very attractive feature and surely the very reason I picked said prized purse from the pile of discarded purses despite the slight “zipper becoming unsewed from the edge of the purse” flaw. But nevermind that, I filled that puppy up and proudly walked the school bus cat walk back to my assigned seat everyday so that I could then spend the next hour rummaging and discovering new things to pull out and look at among all the things I already knew were there. Oh, glory be. Tween heaven.
Finally, the day came when I got to purchase a new purse. No more of this grimy, dirty, stinky, torn, ugly, boxy, blue, and brown monstrosity would I ever have to carry around ever again. I went to the mall. Okay, I’ll be honest, I probably went to Wal-Mart, and picked out this sleek, stylish, small, rectangle but rounded on the edges, beautiful, sun-desert brown, $10 handbag. It had but one long, thin, smooth strap for perfect shoulder to hip carrying. It was beautiful and new and stylish and all mine…until I started transferring my lip gloss and notes and hair pins and perfectly packaged pink panty liners from the piece of shit purse to the new and beautiful purse. In mid-transfer my sister comes to me and says, “Catherine, because I let you use my piece of shit purse, you have to let me use your beautiful and new purse first. It’s only fair.” This time I was less agreeable (“That’s bullshit!” okay, not really. I hadn’t started cussing like a sailor yet.) but still all the more controlled by her. So she takes it and fills it with all her junk and goes to school and proceeds to carry around and show off MY brand new hand bag. And then, the inevitable happened.
On the way home from school, while riding the school bus I can see my sister a few rows up and because she is my big sister and because she always was the first to do anything, there she is flirting with a boy (I had not yet reached this phase) when a playful game of “let me see what’s in your purse” ensued. Of course, no teenage girl in her right mind would ever allow a boy to see her secrets she kept zipped up in a tiny side panel pocket, so my sister fought back. This “fight” that took place was more like my sister and boy both tugging on the one, long, thin, smooth strap which proceeded to promptly snap free from one end of the purse and break permanently. And there I sat watching it all happen in slow motion while my assertiveness took its sweet-ass time to mature and reveal itself years later…in blog form.
When we returned home, my sister quickly emptied the purse, proclaimed her innocence in the matter, and dumped the torn and useless piece of shit purse in my lap. I never even got to use it. I NEVER GOT TO USE IT. I am bitter now. I was bitter then and it has not left. It is the same bitterness. I love my sister and she has repaid me by always being there and teaching me and lavishing me in gifts…later in life. But when it mattered, when everything that shouldn’t matter mattered the most, she just took without warrant and left without reason while I, I started putting my most important prized possessions, one by one, back into last season’s blue, brown and boxy piece of shit purse with a strap.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
