~ Bag Of Moose ~

Grandma Jane likes to knit.  She does it anywhere and everywhere.  And she keeps her needles and skeins of yarn in her purse at all times.

By purse, I mean enormous bottomless black leather satchel a la Mary Poppins.

My whole life, the woman has been able to supply anyone who asks her for just about anything from that bag.  Kleenex? check.  Super Glue?  Check. Band Aids? Check.  Wind Up fuzzy Easter Bunny toy?  Check.   Rubber Chicken?  Check.  ( You think I’m kidding.) I’m fairly sure if she put any real effort into cleaning that thing out, she’d find Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa, or Howard Hughes.

She comes over often to be with with her Varmint and Critter,  plops her butt in a chair, and kerplunks her black leather satchel on the floor by her feet, as she pulls out her knitting.

Enter Moose.

Moose is our 18 pound black lump of a feline.  He’s built for comfort, not speed.  And he’ll never forego a comfortable seat.  That’s not unusual for any cat, I suppose.  But Moose has a bit of a fetish with purses, apparently.

EVERY TIME.  Every. Stinkin. Time.  Grandma Jane plops her satchel down, Moose makes a beeline for it, and does his best to squeeze his fatty-fatty lard butt into it.

Mind you, he doesn’t fit.  Not remotely.  Watching him squeeze into that thing makes me think of my teen years and a particular pair of Jordache Jeans that I had no business trying to get into.

But he can’t help himself.  We don’t know if it is the smell of the leather, or what, but he has a thing for Grandma’s satchel.  He’ll bury his nose in it and start sniffing it like some kind of creeper.

It’s weird is what I’m saying.

I don’t want to judge him too harshly, or mock him too much, because I see myself.  There I am, trying desperately to fit into those jeans.  Believing I could.  That’s Moose, in the black leather satchel.

Just trying to fit in.

In the years to come, when Varmint and Critter are going through the teenage-bullshit-angst that every tween and teen goes through, and complain about feeling like social outcasts, I’ll ask them if they really want to be a fat Moose in Grandma’s Satchel, trying to fit in someone else’s bag.

And the beauty of it?

They’ll know exactly what I mean.