properly prepared in all situations

You know how when you buy a purse, it's all about what looks cute and happens to be in your price/quality range? Today I learned the process can be replicated by a husband.

See, I got a phone call from my husband saying he was near a porcelain repair place with his parents, and there was a purse factory next door, and could I maybe tell him the dimensions of something I might like? So I go get a tape measure, and I'm rattling off dimensions of things I would carry, and I'm thinking this is a hopeless case. How's he going to eyeball something like that, much less get something cute?

It turns out that if you're a particular type of man, who is along for the ride to a porcelain place with his parents, you go armed with a tape measure in your pocket, so dimensions are nothing. Then you just take your mom in with you, and bang, I have a new purse.

I freely admit that it took 9/11 to break me of carrying a pocket knife with me everywhere, but even I never happened to be carrying a tape measure at the right time.