Nobody Ever Died of Terminal Weirdness - excerpt

This is an excerpt from a novel.

"I need a new purse," Mother said abruptly, staring at the green beans on her fork.
"So get one," Dad answered. Dad believes in solving problems.
"You don't understand. 'Getting' a purse is not something you do everyday."
"It's something I don't do at all," I offered. "I think there are perceptions about people carrying purses."
Mother ignored me. "A purse is something you have with you all the time."
"Like a husband," Dad suggested helpfully.
"More so."
"How can anything be more so than a husband?"
Mother sighed. "I ask myself that sometimes. But I need a purse."
"How can anything be more so than a husband?" Dad asked himself. While he considered that conundrum, he tendered a solution to Mother's, "So go to the store and get one."
"What if I can't find exactly what I want?"
"Tell the clerk to find you a purse. What's so hard about a purse? You use it to carry things."
"You will never know what's waiting for you if you don't try," I added.
We considered pursing as a sport. Mother stirred her vegetable with a fork; Dad hummed a tune to himself; I tried rehearsing what I would say if anyone asked me if I planned to carry a purse. Then I thought of all the girls I had seen and what purses they carried. Mostly they had miniscule packets on long strings, or, if they were athletes, backpacks. Maybe purses were a by-product of girls turning into mothers.
"And it has to be the right color."
"Why is color important? My mother used to have fifty purses; one for every pair of shoes she owned. If she had fifty, you can have two. So buy two."
"I can't. That would be like double-dating. When I swear allegiance, I mean what I say."
"You're not marrying the sack; you're using it to haul things around."
"We need a strong connection," Mother continued, staring past Dad. "A purse means something."
"It means there better be enough money in it to pay bills."
"Just like wallets. Can wallets be black? Oh, no. Wallets are brown."
Dad and I stared at each other across the tablecloth.
"Funny," Dad observed. "I saw black wallets the last time I was in the leather goods department. In fact I think I even may have a black wallet here." He squirmed sideways in his chair and from his pants pocket produced a black wallet curved into a half moon shape, which rocked gently on his palm.
"Wallets are brown," Mother continued, staring past the half-cylinder held before her. "And purses, generally. Black purses block the flow of energy."
"They block what? What are you talking about?" Dad looked at his wallet, looked at me ("Black," I mouthed), and shoveled his wallet back into his rear pocket. He excavated his fork from his spaghetti, and analyzed it carefully.
"Once I had a black purse, and the top came off. My father fixed it by screwing in a brass bar across the top of the whole purse. 'It will never come off again,' he promised me. It didn't, but the purse was awfully heavy, especially for a shoulder purse. For six months I leant to one side and had one very strong shoulder."
"I promise I won't put metal into your purse," Dad held up one hand. "Especially round metal objects with pictures stamped on them."
"Although it's generally not possible to know what the right purse should be before you see it. There are certain requirements."
"Like what? Although I know I shouldn't be asking."
"It needs to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. Like an onion."
"Or a report card," I added.
"Like a report card," Mother repeated. "It keeps track of things."
"Big sack," Dad agreed. "We've got plenty of grocery bags underneath the sink if you want something brown and large."
"Waterproof," said Mother firmly. "Grocery bags aren't waterproof."
"I'll say. Did I ever tell you time I was carrying groceries out of the store for one of my mother’s parties? It was raining, and the bottom fell out. Artichokes bouncing along the parking lot, that funny lettuce that looks like the weeds in the lawn just lying on the asphalt, limp and flat."
"What did you do?"
"Picked up the stuff. Of course I lost one artichoke in the sewer, and got yelled at by my mother for not buying enough."
"Did she ever know?"
"Nope. I told her there was a freeze in Chile, and the price of artichokes almost doubled in a week; I didn't have enough to get all she put on the list."
"But you really just packed up the groceries and took them home?"
"Yup. The people at her dinner party never knew the difference. I remember watching them eat their salads, thinking of the parking lot, the rain, and where the car tires had been." Dad cleared his throat. "Same thing with a purse. If you need a purse, just go out and get one. Make sure it's big enough to hold all the stuff you want to carry around, and you're set. I'll even go with you. It shouldn't take more than five minutes."