How would someone who knows you describe you in three words?

A couple of days ago, I was having a conversation with my pre-teen daughter when she mentioned that one of her friends in school had asked her to describe me in three words.

I found this interesting because when I was 12, the conversations I had with my friends were not this ‘deep’. I can picture us making comments such as, “Your mum is pretty…”, or “Is your mum strict?” but not, “Describe your mum in three words…”

Being asked to describe anyone or anything in three words seems like an activity that is done during work-related team-building activities, which companies pay for to improve “synergy” among colleagues, “break silos” and “foster team work”.

Or a question you would be asked when interviewing for a new job, the aim, I’d imagine, for the interviewer to find out how well you know yourself.

Anyway, curious, I asked her what she had said.

“Funny, strict, blue bag,” she told me without hesitation.

My first reaction was to laugh about the “blue bag” description. You see, there is this navy blue bag I bought at the beginning of the year. It is a smallish compact bag with quite a number of compacts, and though it looks small on the outside, it is quite spacious inside, which means that I can fit the many items I haul around every day, many of which I don’t need, but I like to be prepared for any eventuality, so I cram them into my bag, even when I know that if my shoulders could talk, they would protest.

But what I like best about my navy blue bag is the fact that it is a perfect fit for just about any occasion, and even better, I can sling it across my body, which is the best way to carry a bag in this beloved city of ours.

I had no idea that this bag had become such a visible part of my identity that my daughter had come to associate it with me. It is also then that it occurred to me that when I like something, I tend to use it or wear it to submission, until it wears out.

For instance, when I buy a new shoe, I normally forget about all the others that I have and proceed to wear it daily until it wears out. I also realised that I was a creature of habit. If I visit a certain place and like it, for instance a restaurant, I will keep going until the waiters recognise me on sight.

This aside, that my daughter would describe me using a handbag bothered me so much, that the next day, I went shopping for another handbag, even choosing a red one, against my better judgment, having bypassed the muted colours I would traditionally go for.

I was determined to shed any association with my beloved navy blue bag, sure that if my daughter had noticed how much I was attached to it, then others had. As it is, nowadays, when picking my new red bag, I have to almost physically restrain myself from reaching for the navy blue bag.

I am determined not to touch it until January next year. I’m also contemplating buying another bag in a different colour, just in case someone else asks my daughter to describe me, only for her to answer, “red bag”.

[email protected]