What Your Tote Bag Says About You
Or as they say in France, “Le tote bag.”
Tote bags are more than just a hunk of canvas that you stuff your sweaty yoga pants into.
Tote bags proclaim to the world that you’re hip, you’re happening, you donate to NPR, you read The New Yorker. You’re not just a pretty face, you have a brain. See? My tote bag says so.
I essentially paid $50 for a “free” “complimentary” “bonus” New Yorker tote bag since I never have time to read the actual magazine. Plus the New Yorker is super boring and the font is weird. And it comes out like 12 times a week. Maybe it just feels that way.
But it’s a really good tote bag. It’s very well-made (or as well-made as a free hunk of canvas can be) and larger than most. I can put a lot of lunch in there.
A lot.
Tote bags were invented when somebody looked at a pair of old jeans and thought, “I live with 12 cats and can never throw anything away. I think I’ll turn these old pants into a bag.”
I used to do sewing projects like that when I was a kid, before I got kicked out of the Brownies.*
I was pretty into sewing. I remember mentioning to one of my mom’s friends that I wanted a hand-held sewing machine. I probably had in mind one of those As Seen On TV wonders of modern ’70s technology. Like the Popeil Pocket Fisherman™.
My mom’s friend gave me a hedge trimmer.
I probably should’ve acted more grateful, but I was a seven-year-old with a hedge trimmer. There is no scenario in which that turns out well.
*You’re dying to know why, aren’t you.
I have never been to France. But this tote bag (or as they say in France, “Le tote bag ici”) begs to differ.
“Voila!” it screams (the French are a shouty bunch). “I am a world traveler! I’ve been to places you can only dream about! And I brought back this tote bag to prove it!”
The truth is that my boss went to Paris and all I got was this lousy tote bag. He didn’t even buy it for me. I had to shame him into giving it to me because as everybody knows, all of the best gifts are the result of shame and guilt.
Now, this tote bag says you're sensitive. You care about nature, and you only use beauty products that are wholesome and not tested on innocent animals.
Even the wax in Burt’s Bees products is donated willingly by the bees, of their own volition. They actively enjoy handing over the wax that it took them, like, 15,000 bee hours to make. “What, this old thing?” they say. “Here, take it, it’s yours. We weren’t using it anyway.”
It also says that I lose a lot of not-exactly-cheap lip glosses and probably got this tote bag “free” when I bought them in bulk.
You’ll notice that tote bags are almost always free. Somewhere around 1990, somebody said, “What’s the cheapest possible thing that we can give people in return for the obscene amount of money that they’ve just thrown away?”
I bought this tote bag because if I bring home one more souvenir T-shirt I’m going to have to rent a storage unit.
This one says, “I am a last-minute gift. I stink of desperation. Also, Northeastern Ohio is the only part that matters. The rest of the state might as well be a parking lot.”
This is my favorite tote bag. It’s both pretentious and utilitarian. It’s not even made out of fabric, it’s some kind of flammable nylon that’s probably poisonous to fish. Nobody I know has any idea what Médecins Sans Frontières is.
But I know. I’m pretty sure, anyway. It’s in French, so it must be fancy.
It’s doctors? Without borders?
I don’t know, my mom got it in the mail for free.
The best place to store tote bags is in your car. That way, when you go to Whole Paycheck, or other trendy food stores, to buy that Peruvian Butterfly Spit that will cause you to lose 10 pounds by Friday, you can proudly toss your pile of totes into the bagging area for the bored teenager to fill haphazardly. On your way out you can compare your totes with other shoppers in competition for the coolest, most exotic tote of the day.
What a great piece and great idea for a piece!