On my most recent big trip, I was struck by lightening. Right, not lightning.
I walked hours through a city I did not know with my trusty laptop carrier. It was after a daylong conference. Compared to most briefcases, day packs or messenger bags, the canvas Domke Reporter’s Satchel is lightweight. After years of refining, I pack only the most essential elements. Heck, I carried an iPad instead of a MacBook.
As I slipped the strap off my shoulder onto the hotel room bed, I finally realized it was time to unload. There’s any number of writers, reporters and desk-jockey editors who carry what they need in their pockets. What did I need for this seminar anyway?
I have toted some kind of bag to work for quite some time. In fall 2010, I have to admit the most I take out of it daily is the work ID card. Once or twice a week, the Tums, some other first aid or a magazine. Maybe the calculator. Stuff like that. In a satchel or daypack (what I used before the Domke) that stayed half full.
I will not empty their contents on this page, but it seemed that essentials were what would be quite the nuisance if I had to go back home for them. That does not make these bits essential.
I began searching the Internet for ideas, and there was a fresh article in The Wall Street Journal. It was a Q-and-A for something to hold an iPad and just a little more. The author found two answers in history: the military’s map or document case and the musette.
The musette caught my eye. The army-navy type is too big, but a century ago the musette was appropriated by long-distance bicycle racers as a cloth lunch sack. The bike musette has a long strap, and a racer’s crew would use that to hand it off to the speeding pedaler. After he ate his sandwich he’d toss out the musette, which would be picked up by a fan as a souvenir.
Nowadays, the updated ones have no pockets, just maybe a flap. No organizing pockets, padding, no frame. Otherwise you get weight and complexity, and you are up Eagle Creek (an otherwise great bag maker). Here is one from Oregon. Another is from England, where cyclists supposedly call them “bonk bags,” “bonk” there describing the queasiness from not eating and needing a crew member to toss you a full musette. In fact what it is in today’s terms is a small, flat tote bag, just the size of a magazine. It would force me to downsize.
It worked. I don’t need a backup pen to the backup pen to the backup pen. And so on. But room for a letter pad or other paper notebook. And the iPad, which I don’t always carry. The work ID. Gastric and headache remedies.
This is not a purse, man bag or murse, though I won’t be bothered if someone calls it that. It’s a minimalist satchel for a writer’s tools.
Besides, when I have an out-of-town meeting, the very full Domke satchel goes with me on the plane — cables, camera, books. But inside the Domke will be this little bonk bag folded up, for use after I unload at the hotel.
If you’re looking for a moral to today’s story, there isn’t one. It won’t fit in the musette.
