A new old favorite tote

Our light tote bag from the Museum of Modern Art, that was the absolutely perfect size for bringing along a minimum amount of kid necessities (diaper bag, sunscreen, snacks), died. The straps shredded after four months. That is a poorly constructed tote. It's like a shirt from H&M, cute for a party but then wilts and commits suicide in the laundry machine.

I went on a hunt for the perfect tote but all the ones I found were too big. We have one of those big totes that you can stuff groceries in or whatever you suddenly decide you need when you pop out of the house. A picnic blanket to go lay in the park! Your laptop to go to your favorite coffee shop that serves chocolate cake paired with wine! Piles of fruit to bring to a party! I can't remember the other random large-ish things that have occupied that bag, but it retains a fine layer of sand and crumbs at the bottom.

Then I remembered this tote. It is from about 1979. On a visit to Hawaii, and I even remember this, my mom saw a shop that sold totes and t-shirts printed from photos taken there and then, using a state-of-the-art dot matrix printer. Remember the sound of those as they went back and forth? A combination of a staccato ddddd-ddddd-ddddd and a high-pitched reeeee-reeeee-reeeee. We were all deeply impressed when the bag came out of the giant machine, we passed it around and said Oooo! and Ahhhh! As a kid I used it for years and years.

So now we've decided we are unfazed by the unremovable stains, unembarrassed by my bowlcut hair, and are now proudly using it for all our small tote needs.

There, take that, internet shopping! Take that, need for new objects! I defy you with a dot matrix grin.