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You girls will understand this.  You know how it is.  There you are, digging in your handbag, unable to find the thing you want.  It’s in there (you know it is), but you just.can’t.wrap your fingers around it.

For me, it was the Chapstick.  That’s all I wanted, rummaging there in my purse.  Oh, that purse…

“I need a new one,” I’d said to The Mister months ago as he dropped me off at the department store.  “I’m determined to find just the right one.”  I think he sighed, feeling helpless in the face of my handbag issues.  And he wheeled away to park somewhere and Google something manly (like national news or basketball scores) on his smart phone while I plowed through purses.

I thought I’d found it.  Looking, comparing, judging colors, sizes…to strap or not to strap, loaded questions all, then finally settling on a black one.  Which, as I learned later, would complicate my life.

Now, standing there in the dark, scrabbling around for that goofy tube in a bag that was clearly too small, this is what the poor Mister heard from the bowels of the closet:  “I’m ready to throw this thing in the English Channel!”

From the bathroom sink came a chortle, which he quickly smothered, and then this in a smooth, bass voice, “Lord, help her find the perfect purse!”  I hadn’t thought it possible to pray in a “roll-of-the-eyes” tone, but by cracky, if he didn’t nail it.

I laughed (what else), finally emerging, triumphant, green tube clutched in my hot little hand.  “So you’re not planning to go over there and drop it in after all?” he queried, peering at me with those blue eyes.

“I’m waiting ’til spring,” I said, shooting him a look.  “Then I’m getting a new one…something bigger.”  He sighed, looking pale, and headed for his favorite spot on the couch to Google the latest polls on his phone.

Yup.  I’m going to gut it out with my black, too-small handbag until spring. Once the crocuses start showing up, though, all bets are off, and Mama’s going out.  In last summer’s darling pewter flip-flops, of course.

All I want is the perfect purse, one that will let me find the Chapstick and get to my phone.  That, and it’ll save me a trip to the English Channel with the old one.

Rhonda Schrock lives in Northern Indiana with her husband and 4 sons, ages 22, 18, 13, and 5. By day, she is a telecommuting medical transcriptionist. In the early morning hours, she flees to a local coffee shop where she pens “Grounds for Insanity”, a weekly column that appears in The Goshen News, so named for her love of coffee and all those boys. She is an occasional guest columnist in her hometown paper, The Hutch News.  She’s also blogged professionally for her son¹s school of choice, Bethel College; contributed to a humor blog; contributes to a parenting website; and maintains her personal blog, The Natives are Getting Restless. She is a writer and an editor for the magazine, “Cooking & Such:  Adventures in Plain Living.”  She survives and thrives on prayer, mochas, and books.