Hell in a handbag

Who was it that decreed, some time in the past century, that us ladies must carry bags?

I know I'm probably in the minority, but I hate handbags.

I hate the fact that I am obliged to carry one whenever I leave the house - ready for my boys to dump all manner of stuff on me so they can stroll along unfettered. Meanwhile, I have to struggle along with the leather monstrosity weighing me down, giving me a peculiarly lop-sided gait of the handbag hod-carrier (sometimes it takes all my strength just to stop going round and round in gravity-dictated circles).

I hate the fact that I am expected to coordinate my bags with whatever I'm wearing. Switching bags to accommodate my change from drop-dead red ("Lookatme!") to earthy neutrals ("I'll just sit here in the corner, don't mind me") nearly always results in me ending up wherever I'm going without the everyday essentials we're told we can't do without (keys, phone, money, sanitary - umm - essentials, etc.).
You can bet your Prada that the one time I will need to produce my Residence Permit to avoid being dumped in a police van and shipped off to Sierra Leone, it will be a day when I've switched bags and left it on the kitchen table.

I hate the fact that I can't do normal human things, like run for a bus or bend down to pet a cat, without the Quasimodo-like bulk on my shoulder flapping about or slipping down, making me as coordinated as a Womble on heat (and bashing the poor cat in the face into the bargain).

But most of all, I hate the fact that handbags turn into portable black holes, drawing in all the debris and detritus of modern life with no rhyme or reason. Along with the old train tickets, sweet wrappers, leaky biros, forgotten reminders on Post-It notes, defunct shopping lists and neglected bills, there's always a pile of utterly inexplicable stuff in there.
It's like somewhere at the bottom (maybe that hole in the lining I keep meaning to stitch up) there is a portal to another dimension that let's in all those little metal widgets with no apparent purpose, random fluff, a disposal nappy (worrying, as my son is now at High School), assorted leaves and seeds, maybe the odd small furry creature from Alpha Centauri...

Can't I just stuff it all in my pockets? Or better yet, get my Other Half a Manbag?