The Magic of my Cookie Monster Handbag

My everyday handbag is made of royal blue faux fur with an enormous crystal kiss lock top. It’s gorgous and glamorous and reminds me of Cookie Monster, which is why I bought it.

I love Cookie Monster, his joyful lack of grammar, his shameless love of cookies:

Me Want Cookies!

Me Want Cookie Monster Handbag!

I saw it in the background of a photograph on Instagram at one of my all time favorite shops, Fifi Mahony’s in New Orleans.

Fifi’s is where I get all my wigs and a lot of my head pieces, so they are used to shipping me out boxes occasionally like the pink Marie Antoinette wig with popping champagne bottle on top and glitter sparkle pipe cleaners swirling out of the or the long purple wig with butterflies on thin clear wires fluttering all around… in any case, you get the picture—it’s a magical showgirl shop.

In New Orleans most people have “Costume Closets”, where they store all their costume pieces for the myriad of reasons onw wears costumes al year long: parades, Jazz Fest ,Mardi Gras, French Quarter Fest, Decadence Fest, Pirate conventions, St. Patrick’s Day… you name it, they celebrate it.

So Cookie Monster and I go way back. I have always adored cookies of course, and Cookie Monster was my favorite character on Sesame Street. One of my favorite Christmas memories is waking on Christmas morning at the age of seven, running up the stairs, and spotting an enormous Cookie Monster sitting in an area with my name on it. I ran to him and hugged him. At that time I had a theory that my animals lived a secret life where they would get up when I was sleeping and go eat in the kitchen. Every night I tucked in all of my stuffed animals, all forty of them. I would lay them all at the foot of my bed and cover them with my folded bedspread. After a few mornings of finding them all upside down on their heads, I switched to laying them on my pillow, making sure each one had a space. Alas, there wasn’t room for me, so my Mom advised me to make them their own bed on a pillow on the floor next to me, which I did.

So my giant Cookie Monster had eyes on top that rattled when he moved around. I took him on all our road trips, and I would secretly put a French fry in his mouth and turn my head so he could eat it without me seeing it. Occasionally the French fry would disappear, proving my theory that my stuffed animals ate human food. And if I waited a few hours and opened his mouth and the fry was still there, then I figured he wasn’t hungry.

My daughter and I were discussing swearing yesterday, and I said I went through a phase in third grade where I imitated my Dad and cursed like a sailor. I remember trying to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, and the nail bent, and I said, “S-h-i-t!” and it felt wonderful to be using grown-up words.

Until my Dad found out.

And yelled at me. I rarely got in trouble, and it devastated me.

I remember laying in my bed, my face hot and wet with tears, hiccupping into Cookie Monster’s fur and feeling like Cookie Monster might be the only thing in the world that loved me no matter what. He had really good fur for crying.

It turns out that actually, I was loved a lot of people, my parents and five brothers and sisters for starters, but still it was nice to have Cookie Monster there for me.

So years later, when the magic box arrived from Fifi Mahony’s and I unwrapped the Cookie Monster fur purse, my heart sang with delight at the wanton fun of such a wild handbag.

And I felt that zing of blue fur comfort from childhood, because if someone out there is designing glamorous Cookie Monster purses, it means I’m not alone in this cold cruel world. There are people out there who share my funky taste and think Cookie Monster fur might be divine.

Because I carry the purse everywhere, I don’t even think about it, but everywhere I go all day long, people comment like I’m carrying around a darling puppy. Even when traveling around Venice and Paris and rural France last summer, shopkeepers and people on the street stopped me to tell me how much they loved my bag. They pointed at it and then touched their hearts with a giddy laugh and rattled off in different languages. People would cross the street to touch it, and to smile at me or ask to take a picture.

I love connecting with people, and in my current state of grief, I usually feel very alone in the world. The steady stream of people admiring my purse breaks through my isolated bubble, making me feel less alone. I often don’t want to interact, but the Cookie Monster purse demands I do. “Me Want A Little Love!”

A typical exchange:

“Oh my gosh! I LOVE your purse!”

“Oh, thanks”

“Can I pet it?”

“Sure.” (I hold it out for them to pet.)

“Is that a real diamond on top?” (This question usually comes from my 7-year-old Rainbow Unicorn or Superhero Training students.)

I laugh, “No, but it sparkles like one, right?”

One little girl says, “Can I carry your purse?”

I hand it to her.

She clicks it open, puts on my big Prada sunglasses, slings my purse over her shoulder and swaggers away saying, “I’m Miss Marci, and I teach Superheroes.”

My eyes grow huge.

Is that how she sees me?

A teacher of Superheroes?

Because I sure don’t feel like one. I feel more like a chubby middle-aged single mom failure who loves cookies too much and is in desperate need of a superhero to help me make sense of a world that doesn’t seem very nice right now.

But as my daughter says, “When you need a superhero, become one.” (Then she rolls her eyes and takes a selfie of herself #Momsarecrazy).

Well said Annabelle!

Does a teacher of Superheroes count as becoming one?

How about a Superhero teacher carrying a Cookie Monster bag?

I don’t know but I’ll take it.