What's in my Tote Bag
by Aria Kothari
When I leave my building at noon every day, I’m forced to dump a quarter of the contents of my room into a square-shaped, white, With Jean tote bag that came free with the purchase of an overpriced dress. I was never a fan of tote bags before coming to New York; the thick straps create painful red indentations in my shoulders, and the white canvas cloth stains every time it meets the pavement. They never come with pockets either—every time I drop my lip gloss in there, the bag becomes an open chasm and I spend a solid ten minutes rummaging around its depths. Yet, I carry my tote bag around all the time now, and curating its contents has become an integral part of my morning routine.
After a couple years of trial and error, I’m proud to say I’ve mastered the art of assembling the perfect tote bag. It’s a meticulous and mindful process that definitely is not for the faint of heart, but don’t worry — you too can cultivate the quintessential tote!
Here is a list of everything you’ll need. Happy packing!
A tote bag, obviously, from a niche hole-in-the-wall bookshop or an art museum. The more obscure the graphics on it, the better.
Headphones, AirPods, or wired headphones. The city is noisy. They’ll drown out the creepy man on the street corner that yells at you and the ambulance blaring its sires. Play whatever you’d like, but be careful: a man in his late twenties may shove a tiny microphone and a camera into your face and ask what you’re listening to for his TikTok page with 10,000 followers for which he quit his full-time sales job.
A laptop or iPad. Or both! You’re studious. You have papers to write and outdated philosophical texts written by old-aged men to annotate digitally.
One book you read to look intellectual. You’ll read it in the park with your wired earphones and sunglasses perched on the crook of your nose. Put on a cute outfit, too. You want to be seen, watched — but you’re pretending you don’t, hence the sunglasses. You’ll be like, “Look at me!.. But don’t talk to me because I’m invested in Dante’s Inferno…” Skater boys with nicotine addictions everywhere will swarm you like flies.
One book you want to read for pleasure. A little romance novel, or The Hunger Games for the fourth (fine… seventh) time. You’ll read it alone in a coffee shop or your empty campus library. Switch it out for the “smart-people” book if people start to show up.
The boring stuff: phone, keys, etc.…but no wallet. No one carries a wallet. Use ApplePay like everyone else.
A five-by-nine dark red journal for your agitated rants about that person you went on a bad date with, really good ideas that need to be documented right away, and a list of groceries for Trader Joe’s. I used to not buy into the whole “journaling” thing, but once I realized how fun it is to empty every thought I’ve ever had onto little lined pieces of paper, my stance on the matter changed. All of your best—and worst—writing will be held in these pages.
A lip product of choice…or seven!. A chai-tea-flavored Burt's Bees lip balm, that old thick lip gloss you bought ages ago at a CVS, the tinted lip balm for when you want to look dressed up, and red lipstick for your night out. They are all equally important and serve their distinctive purposes, so it's best to carry all of them around at all times.
That’s it. This list isn’t too extensive. I wouldn’t want your shoulders to hurt. You may add or subtract items from this list as you please—but I will be offended if you do. This list is flawless.
This tote bag is a curated collection of all of my most integral parts: an itemized list of everything I require when I leave my building at noon every day and walk down the distressed streets of New York. This tote bag is a mosaic of memories and experiences I’ve had here, a testament to two years’ worth of East Village coffee shops and benches on the west side of Washington Square Park. This tote bag has become indispensable to my life here; I don’t mind the indents on my shoulder or its frayed appearance anymore.