The Purse Named Google

Purses seem like such an older generation thing. Dig deep enough into your mother's, and you could find just about anything from calamine lotion to extra mittens to plastic silverware – and of course the list of “emergency” phone numbers. Youth doesn’t need all the junk our mothers and grandmothers lugged around “just in case.” (The cellphone, which is also a camera, fits in a pocket; credit card in another pocket; combs are for coifs, not for today’s hip-without-appearing-to-work-at-it hair). Of course, I’m not Youth... so I’ve struck a balance: the purse with all its crap follows me around but stays in the car.

These days the bag I reach into when I need something is Google. My brain is the pocket containing bare essentials, the Internet is the big purse holding the rest. Can’t think who said that quote you want to use? Need a recipe for pupusas? Forgot that “old saw” your gramma used to say? Looking for the lyrics to some obscure song? Need a building plan for a storage shed? It’s all in the purse named Google (or Dogpile or AltaVista or MetaCrawler).

I wonder how long it will be before my brain follows me around but stays in the car.