The weight of a messenger bag

“You should stand up straight,” a bald man said as I passed him on the sidewalk this morning. He kept looking back and forth like a security camera, staring at people to the point of swallowing.
My green messenger bag has become a bookshelf and each morning I go through my apartment picking which ones I want to carry with me all day like favorite stuffed animals. Today, I will need “Self-Help,” by Lorrie Moore, 2 composition notebooks and a journal. Oh shit, I forgot “Bird By Bird.”
Yesterday I needed Elaine Equi, “The Writing Life,” 2 composition notebooks and a journal.
I get it. I’m carrying a little extra weight. Plus a nalgene bottle, lunch, breakfast, bert’s bees, my wallet full of pennies, a few flash drives, earbuds, sunglasses, lotion, kleenex…
Fuck you. “You should grow more hair.”

**Disclaimer** This was not an actual conversation I had with this man, just one I imagined when I saw him looking at me.

In other news, I’ve discovered the BEST app on the entire planet – other than apple maps of course – It’s called White Noise Lite and you can pretend you’re on a beach, listening to a thunder storm, extreme rain, crickets, grandfather clock (this seems like it would be more annoying than soothing), wind chimes, a fan, the hum inside an airplane, train ride or just plain white noise! This is going to change my life forever: writing, sleeping, working. Screw you obnoxious world, I’m out.


Comments

2 responses to “The weight of a messenger bag”

  1. Haha! Good one, dear. “You should grow more hair.” If only you had said that. I’m sure you’ve heard the retort Winston Churchill said to a woman who told him he was drunk. It went something like, “Yes, but in the morning I’ll be sober and you’ll still be ugly.”
    I hope that’s true. That he really did say that.

    1. hahaha! I ALSO hope that’s true.
      Should I be worried that I’m having fake confrontational conversations with people on the street? Imagination is practice, right?
      If he had told me to stand up straight, I most certainly would have told him to grow more hair – I think…

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