participation required
May 2nd, 2007a year or a year and a half ago i was trying to help a friend find her keys, so i dumped the entire contents of her bag onto her bed and stared in awe at the rubble before me. the girl could survive for years in the jungle on what she lugged around daily in her oversized, knit, argyle bag. i recalled a vague memory of a friends’ mother digging in her bag for something at a high school basketball game, unloading things onto the seat beside her as she dug deeper, and eventually casually removing a large butcher knife and placing it in the “not what i was looking for” pile. i started imagining an entire gallery filled with individual photographs of the contents of peoples’ bags, but for now this is the closest i am going to come to that project: i am going to list the contents of my bag, and then you are going to list yours. seriously, do it. don’t leave anything out, or it’s not a real sociological experiment.
- one pack of dentyne ice
- one butterscotch candy
- one list of songs
- two pieces of juicy fruit
- one bazooka joe comic
- business card with work schedule on back
- tissues
- handcream
- empty advil bottle
- earplugs
- floss
- lipgloss
- eyedrops
- mints
- compact
- nail file
- tampons
- bobby pins
- more bazooka comics
- one safety pin
- tweezers
- hair ties
- phone
- ipod
- chapstick
- pack of rolos
- a pen
- in a skinny horse pencilbox:Â
- markers
- sharpies
- a pencil
- pens
- paperclips
- postits
- extra memory card
- toronto street map
- planner/address book
- wallet (coins, cash, cards, photos, ticket stubs, nothing unusual)
- six dice
- button that fell off of my peacoat
- one baseball
- two empty ziplock bags
it typically also contains my camera and some sort of sketchbook, but i was using those tonight.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 am
Inside the black Timbuk2 messenger bag I take everywhere:
- phone
- 3 fairly fancy ballpoint pens
- Burt’s Bees chapstick
- May bus pass
- cell phone
- iPod
- digital camera
- big green wallet
- loose coins, leaking from big green wallet
- purple combination Masterlock (in case I go to the gym)
- Frizz Ease mousse & finishing creme (I stopped at Walgreen’s a little earlier)
- Moleskine (graph paper)
- pocket-sized calender / day planner
- tweezers
- black walnut capsules
- pancreatin capsules (along with the above, probably account for my naturopath’s mortgage payment this month)
- loose piece of paper from naturopath with instruction on taking aforementioned pills
- checkbook
- loose receipts
- eye drops
- a tube of Airborne tablets
- peppermint scented lotion
- blister pack containing two Dayquil
- Sudafed (apparently I haven’t cleared out my bag since recovering from that cold)
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:46 am
a baseball??
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:57 am
I have a large bag so I can throw my lunch and a book in it and take it out walking during lunch or whatever, but that’s no excuse for what else is in it:
- 10 various tubes of lip gloss or chapstick. Now that it’s warmer than 30 degrees outside, I barely use any of them.
- 3 tubes of toothpaste, two of which are empty
- 2 mini-travel toothbrushes
- Orthodontist wax
- Checkbook
- Car payment book
- phone
- hand lotion
- 3 pens (one’s red, as I am a proofreader)
- 1 stick of apple flavored gum
- wallet, which includes all of the usual wallet friends
- a straw from Jenn’s house
- A Tastefully Simple recipe sheet: I just ordered something from my mom’s co-worker
- 3 old grocery lists: all say the same thing, which is kind of sad
- my ID tag to get into work
- several reciepts that are now in the trash from Kroger’s, one from Target and one from Enzio’s
- a book (The Partly Cloudy Patriot, by Sarah Vowell)
- a sanitary need
- a post-it of a co-worker’s home number
- a post-it of an old professor’s email address
- an address that was handed out by the mother-to-be at my latest baby shower appearance
- and my personal favorite: a pack of ketchup
Sadly, no lunch today, as I was running late.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:59 am
make that a packet of ketchup
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
I carry two bags with me to work every day. My purse & my lunchbag/bookbag combo so I’m going to include the contents of both.
-purple yarn
-instructions for beginning to crochet
-car keys which include: a key to my side door, a key to my front door, a key to my car, a key to Mario’s car, a key to my office suite, a key to my office, a handcuff key, a key to my mom’s house, a sharpie, a broken gym card, a worn-out Kroger card, & three keys that I am totally clueless about (anyone else have this problem??)
-pack of Orbit raspberry mint gum
-sunglasses
-a powder blue zippered pouch with birdies on it containing cover-up, lipstick, a compact & an earring
-ear buds
-ipod
-cell phone
-wallet
-plastic knife & fork
-piece of paper with silksoymilk.com on it
-small sewing kit
-yellow child barrett (my nieclet’s)
-ticket stub from Three Sister from Towngate
-receipt from Secret Serenity Med Spa (gift for my mom)
-Pier 1 giftcard
-6 tampons (i like to be prepared)
-one gumball
-loose change
-blue highlighter
-2 Ohio University pens
-book (White Teeth by Zadie Smith)
-an orange
-a salt-shaker shaped like a monster
-an apple
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:05 am
mom, i had a question about the baseball, too. then i realized they have a dog. i am guessing it paisley’s baseball.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
ok…so i feel like less than a woman when i compare what’s in my bag and what is in everyone else’s:
-three tubes of lip gloss
-smelly roll-on oil
-mascara that my mom just gave me
-sunglasses
-wallet with the usuals
-one feminine product…not so prepared
-dental floss
-assorted pain relievers
That’s it!
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
yes, paisley’s baseball. it is now in a drawer with her towels & outside toys… where it belongs!
maggie – i always pictured you carring about twenty books in your bag.
kelly – whenever i find grocery lists that are all the same i also find it sad. this is why we are friends.
jenn – handcuff key? you win.
vd – you are not less of a woman, you are a minimalist! i have always admired the small amounts of stuff you’ve carried in your backpacks/purses. like… one or two pens at school when the rest of us felt like we needed a variety of fifteen, at least : )
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Where can I get my hands on some smelly roll-on oil?
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Ethan, you are good! That never even crossed my mind, and believe me, I really thought about it a while. I guess you have to be a “dog person” to think of that, which, sadly, I am not.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
smelly roll-on oil??? bath and body works, of course. it is the aromatherapy stuff…in all kinds of fabulous scents and they are small enough to keep in your bag!
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
At lunchtime, I found these other things in a side pocket of my bag:
-a grocery list (with a weekly menu on the back)
-a packet of pepper
-a receipt from Target (which had to be from xmas time because a spent WAY too much $$) -a list of things I needed to purchase for my wedding written on the back of sample name card
-two metal hair barretts
I felt like I need to confess that I had omitted these items so that the experiment still works.
If your curious, the wedding list looked like this:
Rosie-present
Kelly & Clint – present
Erica & Jess – present
Basket for Ramsay
flip-flops
Spidey
wine
hot glue
It also had the words Ya-Ya and Memo printed on it to test out fonts, I believe.
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
mom, i am used to the assortment or things my mom carries for our dog. water bottle/bowl, food/bowl, treats, extra leash, toys, etc… like you said, just gots to be a dog person.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:15 pm
tissue
wallet
paystub
empty hand lotion bottle
dental floss
lip stick
epi pen
2 chewy yogurt bars
nose spray
pad
wipette
nail clippers
resusci face shield
bandaids
2 Ben 10 tatoos
tic tacs
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:21 pm
It won’t let me comment! Your blog must not like my list!
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
check maggie’s journal.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
jess, try again. do you still carry six dice, too?
kelly, cool ridge in motown also has smelly roll-on oil. the b&b works stuff is really good too. my mama put lemongrass in my stocking this xmas and i lurve it.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
i was thinking about this blog entry when i was walking to work this afternoon and remembered a sociology class where we actually had to go through each others’ bookbags and write up a “detective report” about what we thought of the personality/motivations/whatever of our random classmate. it was fun.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Yes, six dice.
I tried my list again…for the third time and still no luck.
I’ll try here:
Wallet & contents
2 Additional checkbooks
Hairbrush (for the girls’ stringy hair)
2 Hair clips (for the girls’ hair)
Spoon
Bible
Gum
Dice
Farkle instructions
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
yay! it worked!!
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:25 pm
polka-dot mini-notebook
2 micron pens (navy and brown, both .05mm)
purple wallet
ipod
palm pilot
keys: school, apartment, and car
little black bag:
-lip tint, gloss, and chap stick
-coconut&clove oil
-small bottle of random pain killers
-compact
-hemp hand lotion
-eyeglass repair kit
-clip-on sunglasses
-listerine breath strips
-nail file
-glass cleaning cloth
[self-proclaimed packrat]
May 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
was supposed to go to a play as a family tonight, but ella decided that 6:30 was bedtime, so i’ll play….i’m soooooo bored.
here’s the contents of my (diaper) bag:
-large empty tupperware
-large tupperware with 4 brownies inside
-1 cloth diaper
-one dirty cloth diaper bag
-cheap sunglasses that don’t work
-digital camera
-weird multi purpose baby toy…rattle, mirror, chew toy, key chain, all in the shape of a chick
-about 20 biodegradable poop-catching flushable diaper liners
-small tupperware of cheddar kashi crackers
-more diaper liners
-cotton diaper doubler
-anti bacterial wipe
-striped pants, size 18 mos
-1 dirty white sock
-bummis diaper cover
-blistex
-a & d ointment
-film
-a few stale oatios
-pizza menu
-map of jersey city
-portable wipes container
-california baby sunscreen
-kid sized sigg water bottle
-package of thumbtacks
-wallet
hmmm…what does this say about my personality?
i think it says that i have a kid.
August 27th, 2010 at 10:26 am
[...] in 2007 I posted this entry. I thought of it a couple of months ago when a flickr friend posted the insanely minimal contents [...]