Tag: bags

Bags

On By Laura MorganIn Stuff3 Comments

I have trouble with bags. The problem is threefold: firstly, I carry a lot of stuff around and don’t have time to transfer it all between bags depending on my mood and/or outfit, so at any given time I need ONE bag, and one bag alone, which will do duty under all circumstances.

Secondly, I get bored with bags quite quickly, so there’s no point spending much money on them because they tend to get charity-shopped within six to twelve months.

Thirdly, I have very specific requirements. I need to keep my phone and travelcard in an external pocket which is both easily accessible and safe from passing muggers. I need a separate compartment for my keys, BBC staff pass, mints and sunglasses (summer) or gloves (winter). I need another compartment big enough for the make-up I cart around and don’t use. I need to be able to store – at minimum – a book, a bottle of water, a shopping bag, an umbrella, my purse and a plastic folder containing various bits of paper relating to Things I Need To Do. And I need two sets of straps, short and long, so that I can choose whether to hang the bag over one shoulder (easier), around my torso and over the other shoulder (safer) or both (both). Oh, and a separate pocket for my iPod, because the case is encrusted with crystals and if I store it next to anything else the crystals fall off.

So I was delighted yesterday when I found this bag in Dorothy Perkins, which fulfilled every single one of those requirements, and wasn’t horrible, and was a colour (black, if you can’t be bothered to check) which would go with everything else I own.

I duly took it up to the counter, but as the sales assistant was removing the stuffing (is it called that?) I noticed the main zip sticking. “Oh”, I said, “that zip looks a bit sticky, do you mind if I just check to see whether they’re all like that?”. She rolled her eyes and shrugged, which I took as a “no, please go ahead”.

Well, they were all like that, but I decided it didn’t matter enough to make me not buy the bag, so I went back to the counter, where the sales assistant was now serving someone else. She saw me and asked her colleague to serve me. The colleague  said “No, I’m going upstairs”, looked at me and said “you’ll have to wait your turn.”

SIGH, I thought. And then I thought: you know, the bag’s not that nice, and I could buy one from a shop with polite salespeople. “Actually”, I said, airily. “I think I’ll leave it, thanks.”

And then I went home and ordered it from their website, for £5 extra. I know I don’t sound it, but I feel like the winner.

Adventures in shopping

On By Laura MorganIn Stuff
After my confident assertion that expensive bags are no better than cheap ones, my bright blue bag broke as soon as I tried to use it. I took it back and swapped it for the only remaining one, which is the same but bright yellow. It’s kind of…really…horrible. I’m going to use it every day and hope that I come to love it as you might the ugliest kitten in the litter, who may not be cute but whose ugliness is somehow adorable.

Edit: Horrifically, I’ve just realised that my purse is dark green, and the two together remind me ineradicably of my old school uniform. Bleuch. I mean, I quite liked it at the time, but it’s not a look I’ve ever yearned to recreate.

A profitable lunchtime

On By Laura MorganIn Reasons to be cheerful, Stuff4 Comments

…by which, obviously, I mean one in which I spent money, rather than earned it. Last year, when my income went up from “I can pay the rent and go out to eat” to “I can buy an iPod on a whim” (it’s since gone back to the first one), I decided that rather than spend £10 on boots that last three months, I would invest wisely in expensive but high-quality items that would last forever and end up costing me less money than the cheap version.

Well, it turns out that expensive boots (and bags, and clothes) don’t last any longer; they just cost more. So it’s back to spending £10, or in this case £5, on a new bag, which is bright blue and doesn’t go with anything, but that’s ok, because it only cost £5!

I thought I had done more shopping than that, but it turns out the rest of what I bought was my lunch. Well, that’s ok too.

Also, and not unrelatedly (the sun makes me spend money): it’s spring! I know I’ve said it before, but this time it’s properly true. I even had to take off my incredibly warm and deeply impractical fake fur coat while I was outside. You know, for a bit.