Parsing the purse

I used to love sitting next to Ma as she cleaned her purse. There were always those special old things she had forgotten to throw away. Often she had a chocolate hid in some pocket and completely forgotten about it. Though the chocolate would be days old and sort of shapeless, I would still grab and eat it :). There would be bills, old crumpled notes, holy books, dead spider, medicines and ginger tugged somewhere in a ziplock bag. Dad would often scold Ma for keeping all those things stuffed in her bag while I laughed at their conversation. She would explain how each of those things were important for different reasons like how the ginger came handy if someone were to fall ill. Wonder how? I wondered how she could store the whole world in that purse. Today as I sat eating lunch alone, I saw a women cleaning her purse and it reminded me of the good old times.

The last time I cleaned my purse (which was a while ago shhh!) I found the following items:

1. A chewing gum wrapped in the silver wrapper (after being chewed to death)
2. 10 Rs note (nearly brought a tear to my eye, I think I would fill buckets if it were 25 paisa coin) sniff sniff!
3. BEST bus ticket (long back I used to collect these, still cling on to them)
4. Vicks VapoRub, Vicks Inhaler, Vicks Cough drops (These looked if not years, months old eeks!)
5. Eyeliner, Lipstick, Ponds powder dabba (gosh who put that in my purse, never liked Ponds), cold cream, toothbrush (what, why? Thank god I didn’t have a tongue cleaner too), ear buds.
6. Two headphones (one old , one current- don’t ask why)
7. Lotsa bills- I never say no to the person at the counter when she asks if I want a bill, just grab it and dump in the purse.
8. A diary - never used
9. Hair pins, safety pins- Why do I need those for?
10. Some old newspaper, greeting cards, notes to self (interesting read)
11. Keys, some in use, some loose ones- don’t know which lock they belonged to
12. Calculator- My precious, hate when someone takes it
13. Handkerchief- found 5, never carry one and never find one when I need it
14. Pencil cells, Pens (atleast a dozen)
15. And yeah money- a few dollars here and there hidden away. Cancerian told ya!
16. Hey bhagwan so many photos of gods, ganpati, sai baba (all given by Ma)

Now I am feeling all nostalgic. So tell me when was the last time you cleaned your purse? What did you find?