Purses

                Purses, cavernous or petit, most women carry some kind of handbag or at least a wallet.  Of course, now the “man purse” parades the streets as well. We don’t call my bag a “woman purse” so I think purses still really belong to women.  We can’t live without them and it’s a struggle to live with them. They fill so fast. We buy a bigger purse for all the stuff we carry, only to realize the weight is giving us literal pain. So we purchase a smaller purse and put less in, but the day always comes when too much purse detritus creates a disaster like lost keys or receipts. Or like what happened today.

                My  trip to Home Depot was eminently successful. Lakee, the lumber area man, made my small dream come true. The cabinet Beth and I built was lovely, but it had no countertop. All I needed was one 30 x 25 inch piece of something simple to be the crowning glory of our work. Online searches yielded beautiful granite pieces for $300 or more. Websites for local cabinet shops indicated even a laminate piece cut to size would cost at least $100.  I even went to Re-Store, the Habitat for Humanity outlet, but no one actually cuts 30 inch pieces, so all that was the right size were sink tops. Home Depot had countertop pieces, but none 30 inches and they don’t cut that. One Home Depot gentleman reminded me that they carry a laminate coated particle board in the lumber area. And the lumber area saws things.

                Late yesterday afternoon, I headed for Home Depot, which is just about half a mile away. I had decided I would go cheap and just have them cut a 30 inch piece off from the 2 x 4 foot piece. That would exactly cover the top and I would just deal with the little space between the cabinet and the wall. However, it turned out that the actual size of the piece was 23 5/8 x 47 5/8 inches. A section  cut from that would not cover the cabinet top. So the next choice was to do a 4 x 8 foot piece and get some additional shelving. That panel was actually 49 x 97 inches. Go figure, and that is exactly what I did. Among  the multitude of paper scraps and receipts in my purse, I found one that was big enough to start drawing and calculating. I pondered how I could get my countertop and the maximum number of shelves  to assist in finding a place for all the stuff,  which still does not have a home in my home.

                Lakee hauled the heavy piece up to the vertical saw and did my bidding, cutting eight additional shelves beside the countertop. He was so patient when I changed dimensions after looking at the initial cuts. I found some prepainted trim and some nails and headed out the door with my $40 countertop and at least that much more value in shelving, but with no additional cost. I tucked the nails in my purse and drove home, realizing that time was short and I needed to be quick about supper and changing for my meeting.

                However, I just had to see if the countertop piece fit and if it would look OK, so I grabbed it out of the back of the car, trying to balance and carry it one handed in spite of its weight. My purse was over the arm and I had the keys ready to open the door. The board started to slip and in the muddle of trying to keeping it from chipping, my purse,  heavy with the box of nails, flipped upside down. Papers, loose coins, and my phone floated or crashed to the sidewalk. The phone lay with the back and battery scattered, the coins tucked themselves into the pine mulch and the papers started to float away. Grabbing the floating papers first, I then bent for the phone pieces and they seemed to go back together well, so I collected the coins, hopefully not leaving too many for the birds. Then I opened the phone. Nothing – black screen. I put it on the charger, and it lit up to show me that it was charging. Encouraged, I decided to rush to my meeting and let it charge fully.

                My meeting was a church women’s gathering. The director of the local domestic violence organization spoke to us about the group’s purpose and function and how we could help. The statistics were alarming. Last year in Gwinnett County 13 women died at the hands of their abuser. She also worked to disabuse us of some of the myths. The one I remember the most was the myth surrounding the question, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” There are many reasons, but one that stays in my mind is that she’d rather be an abused mom than a dead mom.

                After she left, we gathered donated purses and toiletries from the women of the church. We packed an assortment of toiletries into each purse. The purses will go to the shelter and as a woman comes in, she will be given a purse with a few personal treasures inside. Even if she leaves her home with nothing, she will start again with a purse.

                So at the end of the day, my countertop looks lovely, but if the cost of a new phone ends up being added, it would have been cheaper to just order the countertop.  And that all is petty compared to the struggles of too many women in our world.