Behind the faux croc curtain...

When Abraham Lincoln died, the contents of his pockets were collected and given to his son. Eventually, his descendants left the items to the Library of Congress in a box labeled, "Do not open." In the 1970's, however, in a moment fraught with breathless curiosity, the artifacts were revealed under the watchful eyes of Library of Congress curators.

The items provide an interesting insight into Abraham Lincoln and his character, but what they tell you depends on what you choose to infer. The box contained, among other things, a pair of eyeglasses held together on one side with a piece of string, a worn leather wallet lined in purple velvet that contained a Confederate five dollar bill stamped with Jefferson Davis's likeness, and some newspaper clippings Lincoln had kept that praised him, a rare occurrence during his tenure as president.

I know this, because I taught a weeklong literature unit on Lincoln every year and these little tidbits were part of it. To introduce the lesson, on the Friday before Lincoln's birthday, I had my students lay out the contents of their own purses or pockets on their desktops and infer what those items said about them. I would do the same, never editing my handbag's interior when laying it bare. As a mom, it made an interesting grab bag, with random Hot Wheels stored by my son for convenience mingling with my lip glosses.

It's been a couple of years since I followed that tradition, and I miss it. It's kind of fascinating to see what this examination turns up. Today, I'll turn out my handbag for you again, and you can infer what it says about me. This is a little trickier than usual because I'm between two purses at the moment, so I'll make them both open for analysis.

The first is my little Coach purse that I used for date with my husband on Friday. It currently contains:

1. a pink Sony camera
2. two tubes of MAC lipstick
3. one MAC lipliner
4. two tubes of MAC Lip Glass
5. my wallet with two driver licenses (one with my maiden name), three check cards, one credit card, Disneyland annual passes for my son and I, a movie ticket receipt (no title listed), my son's and my library cards, a Nordstrom gift card, a Costco card, and two super saver movie passes.

The second is a giant faux croc patent leather bag that doubles as a diaper bag and occasionally as a laptop case. It normally contains everything listed above, plus

1. left over Iron Man valentine cards from my son's school party
2. two check books
3. a fistful of clean but crumpled fast food napkins
4. receipts (Target, Costco, McDonalds, the mani/pedi place, an ATM transaction)
5. loose cash ($9)
6. two torn, empty envelopes
7. Weight Watchers points tracker
8. several grocery coupons
9. stubs from deposited checks
10. a week old Relief Society bulletin
11. a dentist appt reminder
12. a brochure about our city's centennial celebration
13. an old birthday card from my MIL
14. a brown cotton head band
15. one more MAC lipliner, two more MAC lipsticks, one other lipstick, four more lip glosses
16. a Borders gift certificate
17. two half full punch cards for the local LDS bookstore
18. my business card case
19. a movie stub (Slumdog Millionaire, I have no idea why it's R and am glad I was talked into it)
20. a faux croc wallet with the cards I don't use very often (insurance cards, Blockbuster, Game Stop, etc.)

And looking back over the lists myself, I can analyze myself perfectly: I spend too much money on books and lipstick. I'm going to have to think harder about what goes in my purse so that if it's one day opened in excitement by future historians, it will reveal that I was a woman of great depth and intelligence. From now on, I'm stripping it down to nothing but my driver license, a credit card, and pocket sized copies of a thesaurus, a dictionary, a copy of Great American Speeches, and my college transcript (except for freshman year). Baby G better hope nothing bad happens in his diaper when we're out and about because I can't put any Pampers and wipes in there and risk looking all human and stuff a hundred years from now, in case on any given day my purse is snatched and saved for posterity.