Handbags and Gladrags

[Sir_Nigel]

So I’d bought my final Christmas present. In a lingerie shop. It had all gone without a hitch, no hint of embarrassment or hesitancy. I had successfully managed to give off the air of a Man of the World rather than a skulking cross dresser or a lurking pervert. But then, a setback - the girl behind the counter presented me with my purchase in a large square pink gift bag with fancy rope handles - the sort of bag that Paris Hilton might dangle from her forefinger whilst leading a French poodle down Rodeo Drive. This was not the sort of bag that could be carried with a blasé disinterest. Hmmm, I said, Don’t you have any regular carrier bags? She wasn’t sure what I meant. I mean the sort of bag a man might simply fold up and shove into his pocket. She shook her head. They didn’t have that sort of bag - only these big stupid square ones.

 

So now I was faced with the prospect of walking out in public with a huge girly pink bag, which proclaimed to every prying jackanapes where I’d been shopping and why. What about a plain brown paper bag? I wondered, but no they didn’t stock those either. Which is perhaps just as well as plain brown paper could be seen as a little sordid.

 

We could deliver, she suggested. But I explained that, by its very nature, this is the sort of gift that needs to be presented personally. You can’t just shove it through her letterbox. There is a certain frisson to be gained and certain expectations involved. But obviously it was neither the time nor place to go into details with a smirking shop assistant.

 

I considered trying to brazen it out and stroll away vivaciously swinging my handbag like Julie Christie. Damn social conventions. But I wasn’t sure I could summon up the necessary degree of chutzpah - not all the way home anyway.

 

I peered into the bag at the negligible bits of flimsy nothingness – why not simply shove the lot into my pocket? But the potential for social embarrassment loomed before me – what if they were to spill out and trail behind me or become entangled in my fingers when I stopped to mop my brow or give directions?

 

But what the hell. My mind was made up. I thrust the items deep into my trouser pocket and, with my hand clenched tightly there for security purposes, I left the shop with a determined though lopsided stride. I would not pause to give directions nor mop my brow and if confronted I would simply claim to be a man with a slight limp for whom it is vitally important that he keeps his hand firmly in his pocket at all times…. for a reason to be decided when I got outside.

 

But I think next year I’ll get her a bathrobe.