Trophy Shopper

I just added a new trophy to my collection.

By trophy I mean the glossy, firmly constructed bags dispensed at the most luxurious of shopping venues - each bag symbolic of a significant purchase in my shopping career.

Tiffany offers a bright, robin's-egg-blue bag to carry off your sparkly gems. I have three of those bags...

Coach was big into their crazy colorful Scribble C logo a couple years back, but more recently they returned to an understated white bag with red trim. I've got one of each in my special Trophy Shopping Bag collection.

Sephora. Victoria's Secret. These bags are wonderful items to recycle. You can drag your lunch to work in them (the smart design and sturdy material can last you weeks to and from work) and you can use them to bundle up things - like library books - that need to be toted to and from home.

The latest bag I've added to the collection is none other than the much coveted Prada.

Confession time: I did not shirk the rent to buy a fancy schmancy handbag. No, I bought something that was long overdue and far more reasonable - a new pair of eyeglasses. Simple, black and mostly covered by my vision insurance.

Mostly.

The Prada frames were a bit more than the $150 allotted (so were most of the other Gucci, Chanel, Oliver Peoples, Dolce Gabbana, etc. offered in the eyeglass shop. Note to self: if you're buying glasses on a budget, do not go to the neighborhood eye doctor's office in Oakley) but they were so beautiful. And. They. Were. Prada.

Fancy fancy fancy.

So the glasses came with a case, a firm cardboard box to hold the case, a special lens cleaner, and the much coveted Prada shopping bag. Almost as if you walked into a Prada boutique and decided to pick yourself up some 20/25 lenses perfect for astigmatism.

Here's the silly part.

I don't know why I save most of these bags. I will never ever ever recycle most of them.

I cannot tell you how pretentious and showy I would feel if I tossed my Dinty Moore beef stew and mandarin orange fruit cup in a Tiffany bag and brought it to work. The whole Dinty Moore lunch completely contradicts the aura, the essence de Tiffany. I would feel so gauche throwing my personal planner, my mittens and my makeup in the Scribble C Coach bag.

I mean, how showy would that be?

Now, the second tier bags like Victoria's Secret and Sephora - those are fine for re-use in my book. Almost everyone and their mother has discovered the secret of Victoria, so re-using that bag isn't any obnoxious, ostentatious statement of conspicuous consumption. That kind of recycling basically just tells the world you like nice underwear.

And that statement is a-o-k with me.

So. I've put the Prada bag with all the others - in a big messy pile on the floor of my pantry.

A trophy case of sorts that never sees the light of day. Bags just sitting there basking in their single use glory.

Will I ever have the heart to throw them away?

Never.