It's all about the accessories

The importance of fashion in this city cannot be underestimated. Yesterday while standing in line at Food Emporium I watched the woman ahead of me get turned away for insufficient funds. She was using a food stamp card to buy a loaf of generic bread that cost $1.19 but she didn't have enough money to cover it. It broke my heart - hey, we've all been there - and I was about to lend her the $2 until I noticed that she was carrying a Coach handbag.

Over the weekend I was nosing around our local block sale, sifting through a cute little Asian girl's clothing pile when a woman in a full burqa (you know, the black shroud-like thing worn by Muslim women) came up to the table. She was completely enveloped - all I could see were her eyes (which is super creepy, by the way) - but she immediately picked up a bright pink pleather purse. She eventually bought it (I was dying to see where she kept her money but I didn't want to stare) and floated off. It was so incongruous, like seeing a Hasidic jew wearing nothing but pasties. I like to imagine the Muslim woman going home, throwing off her burqa, grabbing the pink plastic purse and dancing around the apartment to "Billy Jean".