Men use pockets.  Pockets hold stuff.  They do not encumber hands, arms, or shoulders.  They keep your stuff secure, they are capable of holding surprising amounts of stuff, and you will never leave your pockets in a cab or in a restaurant.  And when you need your stuff, you reach into your pocket and you pull out your stuff.  Congratulations, men: you figured out pockets.

Pocket technology is complicated, but this gives you a rough idea how it works

Women use purses.  Purses hold stuff- tons of it, sometimes.  But purses don’t come with filing systems, search engine software, database capacity, or RFID scanners.  That means that you can stick a glow-in-the dark, soaking wet chihuahua in most purses and run the risk that you will never find it again.

I remember sitting around in slow places with my mom when I was young- places like the doctor’s office or the pharmacy.  Bored out of my mind, I would ask her if she had any treats on hand.  A lot of times she told me there was some candy in her purse, so I’d pick the thing up and dive in with my whole face and two hands.  In retrospect, maybe she was really just trying to occupy me for the next half hour.  If so, she was brilliant.  It took fifteen minutes just to get through the whole collection one time.  But that’s the thing with purses- you’re going to see everything at least four times before you find the one thing you’re trying to find.  I honestly feel bad for that dopey kid sitting in those waiting rooms 25 years ago, searching, searching, searching, through the combs and old lipstick and compacts and check books and check registers and pepper spray and scissors and sensible shoes and flatware, only to be rewarded with three busted up Neccos hiding at the very bottom of the bag.

Trust me: Sooo not worth it.

So I came to hate purses.  That was in part a reaction to my Mom’s purse and the unimaginable diversity of its contents.  The way I was conditioned, I never laughed at the Looney Tunes episodes where Bugs Bunny reaches into a bag and randomly pulls out two light bulbs and a monkey wrench.  That seemed totally plausible to me.

But this is not about my Mom’s purse, which I have since realized was completely representative of all the purses in the world.  It terrifies me when Macy asks me to grab something out of her purse.  I know every time that I will spend five minutes rummaging through the motherly detritus before giving up and handing the bag to her.  There is honestly no chance I’m going to find what I’m looking for in Macy’s purse.

So can I sell you ladies on pockets?  My pockets get emptied out every day.  Due to this innovation, there is nothing in my pockets from the year 2005.  True, I don’t usually have room for the lip gloss from three lip gloss tubes ago, but you learn to live without.  Plus, sometimes, say, after a doctor’s visit, I have to put my pants back on with the pockets already full, and I am shocked to realize I must have ten pounds of stuff hanging at my waist.  It feels very much like putting your gun-belt on after a siesta in the back of the saloon.  Why would you want to miss out on that?

There are two arguments women use to justify their insanity.  First, pockets don’t hold as much stuff.  Please turn your attention to Exhibit A:

Yup.  That’s the stuff I pulled out of my pockets after coming home from a party one night last month.  Two gloves, two sets of keys, two pens, three hefty electronic devices, a wallet, and yeah, that’s an inadvertently stolen spoon.  (What?  I took it back later).  That’s an above average load, but it didn’t give me any problems.  Ladies, you can do this.

Argument 2: Girls can’t put stuff in pockets because it messes up the lines of their feminine shapes.  Yeah, that’s true.  But so does pregnancy and people still do that.  Same with over-eating.  The point is, when something is really really worth it, women are willing to sacrifice shapeliness for something more important.  Let me be the first man to stand up and say I will happily look past the baggy look if I never have to go looking through a purse again.  Can we make this happen please?  Thanks.