I confess to a full-blown chortle when I heard boxer, Arturo Gatti's wife had strangled him to death with her purse strap. The news described her as his "sexy stripper" wife, which I guess made it even more chortle worthy. Being strangled by a beastly, whoa-has-she-ever-let-herself-go wife wouldn't have been half as fun. And Lorena Bobbitt kinda cornered the market on penis adjustments, so I guess strangling the punchy asshole in his sleep was the next best thing. His wife looked almost happy, and truly quite stripper sexy, as the police escorted her out – without a purse I might add.
I haven't chortled like that since the pharmacy student at the drug store asked me if I had ever used eye drops before, and I said no, and I wouldn't be anytime soon because Jack had an ear infection, then I chortled kind of like a crazy person, so badly I had to leave the pharmacy and let Jack pay for his own prescription.
Sadly, a good chortle is usually accompanied by a loosening of the urinary tract so I try to keep my chortles down to suppressed hysteria. Like the kind you get in church, especially at funerals, which is usually the only time I enter a building with a naked guy hanging openly on a cross. I always look around and try and make eye contact with the other sheep, signaling with my head over to the naked guy as if I am the only one there that thinks that's just fucking weird interior decorating. Why not a couple of deer heads and some real taxidermy action figures to get the full effect. Or a taxidermy of the last supper, only with groundhogs or something.
And why the last supper and not the last dinner. Maybe they were farmers.
Anyway back to the purse and how I am convinced Jack will likely, eventually, inevitably, snuff me out while I am sleeping (it off). I hope he uses a nice down pillow with a high thread count pillowcase, or maybe a life jacket when I am passed out in a deck chair on a Caribbean cruise after too many highballs at lunch. Then he can just flop me overboard and get on with his life. Poor bastard hasn't had an easy time with me as his mother. Actually he'd have to use a pillow or a life jacket because I don't own a real purse.
My grandmother used to hang on to her purse so tightly, like it was full of hundred dollar bills and crack, instead of old Kleenex, butterscotch Lifesavers, and a vinyl wallet with a library card and some red two-dollar bills. Once, my cousin Stephen undid my grandmother's bra in church to see if she would let go of her purse, which of course she did, and talk about chortle. Christ almost fell off his perch we were all laughing so hard.
Maritime Frame-it, now Frame-it (they dropped the Maritime bit) have (has?) a new line of purses that look like whoever designed them was a happy, creative, possibly high-on-drugs type person. Check them out.
I notice some of the purses have nice long straps, just in case you feel the need to strangle someone.
halifaxbroad@gmail.com
Frame-it has (have?) 3 locations: Spring Garden Road, Mic Mac Mall and Halifax Shopping Centre.
