A video advertising a burgundy roll-top bag appeared on my phone today morning when I was lying on the bed, too tired to get up. While it could have been an ad sponsored by the company which made the bag, I realised that it was a video they had uploaded on their account. This must have made me a little more generous with the way I watched the video, noticing the various pockets and their functions the advertisement showed me.
It was only later in the afternoon, having my coffee and reading Nicholson Baker’s /Box of Matches/, that I realised that it was not just appreciation that I experienced regarding the bag, but a degree of wanting which had largely disappeared from my life.
I remember the times that I wanted things: toys, food, people. Looking back on my childhood I am reassured that this kind of wanting is different from other kinds of wanting. I find myself supplicating before the bag, the spiritual dimension of me shrinking before its magnanimity, its creases sharp and well-defined against the corpulent rolls of my midriff, and the even tone of its burgundy fabric made me feel ashamed of the scarring I tried to hide with expensive skin creams.
These are matters of spirit. There are matters of utility too. The burgundy bag is not as functional as the deep blue bag that I carry these days. There are fewer pockets on the burgundy bag and I am not sure whether it has a toughened bottom piece that can withstand being put on gravel, rough concrete, and the occasional bare earth. I believe, perhaps so that the woman who sits next to my table is impressed and the square-jawed lithe younger men are made envious, that the roll-top, the G-hook, and the burgundy colour of the bag makes me inhabit another kind of world, where I am desired and worshipped.