Mark Ginocchio, columnist for the Stamford Advocate, finds his man purse has gained weight since the holidays:

Each day to work I carry a “messenger bag” which is really just a euphenism [sic] for man bag or better yet, man purse. As I take the Metro-North train to Stamford every morning, I sling my leather black bag over my shoulder and march like herded cattle with all of the financial analyst and hedge fund-type people as I go to work my low income journalism job.

But like a pubescent junior high schooler in a locker room, my eyes stray to everyone else’s bag and I notice that mine is fatter than theirs. I mean, it’s no contest. So I think it’s time my bag went on a diet…

So Mr. Ginocchio decides to act on his feelings of man-sack envy. A grueling session of man-purse weight reduction ensues, during which Mr. Ginocchio painstakingly analyzes what he needs and what he doesn’t need to carry with him. Sample item:

The Beatles biography by Mark Spitz — Why I’m reading another bio of the Beatles is beyond me, but this one was very highly reviewed and my boss is reading it too, so I’ll have something else to talk to him about (always the brown-noser). The thing is this hefty thing comes [in] at over 1000 pages. Carrying that in my bag every day is like eating Thanksgiving dinner Monday-Friday.

Not exactly Walter Benjamin unpacking his library, but a fascinating window into the cultural baggage of a young journalist nonetheless. And a gentle reminder of purging methods we all must resort to if we are to keep our man sacks hanging only lightly about our person.

• My man purse is gaining weight [myspace.com]
• Illuminations, by Walter Benjamin [Amazon.com affiliate link]
• “Unpacking: Walter Benjamin and his Library” (PDF) [Libraries & Culture]

This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2006 at 7:37 am and is filed under Bag Contents, Commentary, Man Bags, Messenger Bags. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.