Something scared me at Macy’s today. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t even undead. It was…a purse. You may or may not remember the Bermuda bag fad in the eighties. It is briefly mentioned with a photo on this eighties fashions page. I grew up in preppy-ville, so I could not escape it and my parents decided that we had better things to do with our money than keep me furnished in expensive, trendy items. The purse consists of wooden handles and a base fabric with buttons to which you can attach covers in different fabrics. The idea is to match your outfit, as exactly as you may wish, with your ever growing collection of cloth covers. It seemed that everyone had one (except me, sniff) along with multitudes of covers to match each monogrammed sweater. I’m over that lack of fitting in now, but, back in the present, I saw one in the purse section of Macy’s and nearly fainted. It was like a bad dream from long ago, coming back to haunt me. And I admit that for a couple seconds I thought “Ha! I can afford to buy this for myself now and my parents can’t say anything!” But, I realized it just wasn’t me (and probably never was me). Someone has posted patterns for making your own bag and covers, a route I never even considered back then! Well, I suppose the eighties retro fad is up next. Where did I put my Official Preppy Handbook?