Me and my bag

We are going to get personal here. Not like sharing a toothbrush - no, more personal than that. I mean like the girl walking on the beach talking about freshness with her mom kind of personal. I have lived for over 30 years and I have lived each day of my life with my annoying neighbor - my bag.

I was discussing Evolution versus Intelligent Design with a coworker last week. We were giving points and counterpoints for each - but I think I have the Intelligent Design killer. No superior being would have intentionally designed the man bag. It is such a pain in the ass - why outside? God, why not tucked safely away somewhere???

I want to clear something up early. I have seen my wife in labor, she is way tougher than me, so I can say without hesitation that labor hurts worse than being kicked in the bag. but labor comes with a 9 month warning. Getting hit in the bag can happen at any time without warning. Your kid wants to hand you a toy "oof!". You misjudge a groundball "oof!". You stop quickly on your bike and fall on the bar "oof!" [okay seriosly - what the fuck? Why do guys bikes have the bar up in the bag ramming range and the bar on women's is safely angled down??]

I will give you a real life example. When I was a Sophomore in college I was in the shower [ladies stop to enjoy the visual]. Currently, I use a (loofa?) and squirtable soap - but that was way to gay for college - so I used a manly bar of soap. Well, I am showering away and I drop the soap. I know how nasty the floor of a college dorm shower is - so I make a desperate play to save the bar. My hand is travelling downward at lightspeed. Well, my thumb hooks my bag and strectches it about 90% of the way to the ground - at that point it snaps back up and does the spinning thing - like when you open a window shade and just let go of it. I dropped to the ground and just laid there for about 5 minutes in agony. See if that shit was packed safely inside I'd be fine.

But traumatic injury is the exception - not the rule. The thing is just a pain in the ass on a regular basis - injury or no. I have about a 5 minute ritual to get the bag dry when I exit the shower each morning. I have no idea why - but it is impervious to drying. If they could harvest the material I am sure they could make a wicked sponge with it [Voice of Billies Mays - the guy that sells Oxy Clean etc] "... the mircle Scrot-sponge holds 8 times more water than regular sponges. And for easy travel - just get it cold and it shrinks to 1/5 its normal size!!" I think guys don't talk about this kind of thing enough - but if we did there'd be a line of products to fix it. My idea is a blow dryer system. Picture the helmet-type thing that the grannies use for their perms, at the hairdresser - but flip it over and make it smaller. Just nestle the bag down there and allow the circulating winds to dry things up nicely.

Another issue is the changing size. If you are cold it shrinks down to almost nothing - when it is hot it stretches like Silly Puddy. I literally can tell if I have a fever based on this "feature" Plus, it's never comfortable - guys constantly have to make minor adjustments. Baseball players get a bad rap for this - but that's because they are stuck on TV with no cover (like a desk or a table). I am sure that I have to make minor adjustments as frequently as a baseball player - but there is not a camera on me for 3 hours straight.

The final issue is in dress clothes. If you put on a tux your body temperature will jump to 100.4 - but the bag will be somewhere near 152.7 degrees. Scientists could solve the energy crisis if they could tap this cheap, "clean" fuel source. The only defense is Gold Bond powder. At my wedding it was 95 degrees out and it was an outdoor wedding. In the changing room there was a bottle of GB and it was used extensively - it may be the reason that I am married today - with out it I would have burst into flames and died.