And now for my next trick..............

I have discovered the secret of the Magi.
You know when you were a kid and you watched magicians pull endless things out of hats and bags?
Like Mary Poppins, they put their hands into a small pocket of felt or silk and removed rabbits, flowers, doves, jugs with water in them, small children and tigers.
And you thought " That's amazing, he managed to keep the cast and crew of Oliver Twist in there, but surely that's all that can be inside" and -Lo !!In goes the hand again and out comes a Boeing 747.
Well, I have an announcement.
This is not some tawdry trick learned in the dark halls of some secret society, or an illusion based around smoke and mirrors.
The answer to the question " How can one possible keep the detritus and accoutrement of an entire existence inside one small 6 inch by 6 inch satchel?" is answered by the statement "Just make sure the satchel in question belongs to a woman"
My handbag is a magic portal with hidden rooms that hold my entire life.
It's like a bottomless cup of coffee but instead of life saving caffeine, when you sup from the cup that is my handbag you will find an endless array of the bits and pieces that would give the average anthropologist enough material for a 10 part Doco on the BBC and a psychologist enough material for a thesis and a court order.
Lipsticks seem to be a feature.
A lot of women carry a lipstick in their bags. I carry the range. Not 'A' range, as in 'a range of lipsticks', I mean 'THE' range, as in 'the current range available in most shops of all brands'.
Anyone who has met me has probably worked out that I can be a bit girly when it comes to my appearance.
I don't really fuss about my body as much as I probably should, but I am a bit 'thing' about my face.
It was not always thus.
For dozens of years- possibly hundreds- I simply didn't give a shit.
In my teens/twenties and most of my thirties the thought of taking time out of my day to apply make-up when it all just dribbles off anyway seemed pointless and vain.
I would look around at the painted harpies that filled my view and think " who are you kidding?"
Make up counters in Department Stores reminded me of scythe-like farming equipment designed to rip the ripe heads off the fattest wheat sheaf's as they wandered past in oblivious decrepitude.
Paying money to put sheep fetus on your face or taking 'colour compatibility' advice from a screaming fairy with flapping hands or a woman painted up like a clown seemed as sensible as climbing very tall mountains covered in ice.
I simply did not see the point.
But then a funny thing happened on the way to the circus, as they say.
One day, I bought an eyeliner.
A brown one.
And, because I was there, I also bought a lipstick.
The thin edge had been wedged right in.
Since that fateful day I have purchased enough Glyceryl Stearate, PVP, Stearic Acid, Propylene Glycol, Triethanolamine, Emulsifying Wax, NF, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben, Imidazolidnyl Urea, Simethicone,Mica Cl 77491, Cl 77492, CL 77499 (Iron Oxides), CL 77891 (Titanium Dioxide) and other C numbers all parading as beauty products to sink a small, but powerful, battleship.
I have applied so much paraffin wax and colours to my lips that for a while, I used to blame my lipsticks for my weight gain.
Truly, I have worked out that I chow down on at least 15mls of delicious oxides and vegetable fats a month.
I'm not sure what Weight Watches would have to say about the 'points value' of a tubes of 'Juicy Jelly lip gloss'- but at the rate I digest it, it must surely be added to the calorie count of any diet plan?????????
Anyhoo, my lip painting is not what we are discussing today, rather, the ability of my handbag to fill its self overnight with everything that isn't nailed down and then for me to discover these stow away bits and bobs through-out the week.
Because I swear, I am not putting all this stuff in there.
Take, for example, the coins.
The city I live in uses coins for all denominations up to and including $10.
That's 12 different types of coins that can be used to purchase stuff.
Some of them are tiny tiny and weigh next to nothing. They can also purchase very little by themselves. Luckily for them, however, they breed very well in small dark places- like handbags-so that even if you started the week with say- only two- by the time the weekend rolls around you may have as many as 20 or thirty of the buggers just sloshing around the bottom of your bag.
I could spend them I suppose, but in all honesty buying a coffee with fistfuls of minute 10 cent coins looks as lame as it sounds, so once a week I empty all of these small brown breeders into a Piggy Bank ( actually it's a Teddy Bank but that's just semantics) and once a year I send my children down to the bank with plastic bags filled with unwanted, neglected shrapnel.
I work a lot, so little excursions like this one can be an excellent distraction for young people.
Remarkably, all that breeding coinage- when placed in piles- becomes actual money.
My now cashed up kinder then take themselves off for a delicious 5 course meal or a trip to the Philippines ,often purchasing sheets of gold leaf and munching down on it whilst walking the streets of Hong Kong, such is the ability of my handbag to hold and manufacture small denomination currency.
Another thing my handbag has an endless supply of is pens.
'Nice' pens that feel good in the hand, cheap plastic pens that never release their ink no matter how many circles you draw on the paper, and novelty pens with feathers stuck on the ends- which are the only ones I can ever lay my hands on in a business meeting.
I do not know how they get in there- much like all the coins and the lipsticks-but if you need a pen that looks like a flamingo when you are signing a contract that has the words 'whereas', 'amicus curiae' or 'defendant' in the body of the text, I'm your girl.
Unless, of course, if the matter is urgent, in which case all the pens drain down into the sinkhole that also exists in my handbag and you are left digging 'a hole down into China' as my mother used to say, with not a single useful writing object in sight.
This sinkhole only appears in emergencies- like when you need a pen because you have just met the greatest person ever and they want to give your their phone number, or you are 10 cents short of the cash you need to pay the taxi driver and he has locked the doors, or you see that you are about to bump into your ex in the street when you are coming back from the gym, and you REALLY need some lipstick. NOW !!!
Which is why I consider my handbag not just a trick, like some kind of novelty purchased from a shop that also sells escapable handcuffs and whoopie cushions.
My handbag is, quite simply, magic.
Of the real variety.
And it matters not whether I am carrying a dainty crystal clutch thing for the evening, or a serious dead-cow back-pack for the heavy days, or a snazzy nylon zippy thing for the in between times, if it's a bag, and I am holding it, it will hold and dispense or hide and withhold as many or as little of the things it feels I need at any given moment.
It's that amazing.
And though the thought of my handbag dispensing value judgement is a little unnerving, I am coming to terms with the idea that sometimes I should just go with the flow and learn to trust.
Perhaps the great secret here is that, like all things that are good for us even though sometimes it's hard to recognise it, my handbag knows not only what I need, but when I REALLY need it.
Perhaps not getting that number is better for me in the long run than getting it, perhaps I need to take the bus more often, perhaps bumping into my ex fresh faced is just what the doctor ordered.
When a magician stands on stage and sticks his hand into the bag, perhaps what comes out is just as much a surprise for him as it is for his audience.
Lets face it, a life full of surprises is just so much better than the alternative.
Plus, the advantages of having a ready escape route when the need arises can not be overlooked, and although it would be faster for me to walk my way to China than to dig my way into it, knowing that the portal works as a revolving door is heartening to say the least.
Dressed, as we are, for the world stage, it pays to know where the exits are.
I shall end today's show with a simple card trick, watch my hands, you will note I have nothing up my sleeve, and just a small elephant in my handbag......................
Trust me, I'm a woman, and I've done this before.
Watching carefully?......................................
TA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.