Forum: The Man Bag

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Ah, yes, the gift-giving season. So what to get for the contemporary fellow who has everything? The Man Bag.

The Man Bag is a high-style satchel -- a purse, though its creators hate when you call it that. It's designed to hold the modern man's wallet, keys, sunglasses, iPod, cell phone, body spray, hair goop, diary and whatever other junk he totes around these days.

Why was the Man Bag created? As it goes, three fellows -- Brian, Peter and Thai -- "were tired of being ribbed for carrying their gadgets around in hand bags. The torment reached a boiling point one night when Thai was called a 'pursey' at a party."

That fellow who insulted him was lucky Thai didn't have a sturdy Man Bag to smack him with.

In any event, the three designed their special bag for men (they call theirs the MAN-n-BAG) and sold it through www.manbag.com. The concept took off. The Nightline people said it's the latest trend in men's fashion. A GQ style editor they spoke with explained why:

"Once you're out in the work world, do you really want to carry a backpack when you're wearing a suit? At the same time, most guys don't want to be like their dads and carry a briefcase."

Which is precisely the problem. Modern guys don't want to be like their dads -- masculine fellows who defined themselves by their actions, not their high style, fellows like my father the Big Guy.

The Big Guy has long known that if a thing doesn't fit into a man's pockets he shouldn't be carrying it. He carries his keys in his right front pocket. He carries his change in both pockets, so he can dangle it with both hands while shooting the bull with the butcher, the mechanic and anybody else he encounters in daily life.

The Big Guy's wallet is what a real man's wallet should be -- thick, fat and worn. It holds only the basic items a man needs to get through life: license, money and a yellowed photo of my mother from 1953. He keeps his wallet in his right-rear pocket.

Nobody taught the Big Guy to carry his keys, change and wallet this way. Nobody taught me, either. It's hard wired into male DNA. It is what men have always done because it is what we're supposed to do.