The soldier, still cleaning his truck:

“Okay, that’s it! I’m get rid of these bags,” he said. “I’m not keepin’ anymore.”

“What bags?”

“Oh, these bags girls use. My mother. My sisters. They give me this shit in these bags. What are they called? They’re bags! They are girl bags, bags that women use to give you things in.”

“You mean gift bags?” (swearing below the break)

“Yeah, I guess. Why the fuck do they do that? Why? Why can’t they just give you your stuff? Why do they have to out the stuff in a girl bag that’s a girly color with these girly handles? And the bags have girly shit on them too. Why, P, why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t do that.”

I smiled to myself, glad I chose a Valentines card for him that was neither pink nor red which is not all that easy to find actually…

“Yeah, my brother’s girlfriend shows up with my mail and she’s got it in this red fuckin’ bag. Yeah! She gives it to me in this red bag and I’ve got to walk through a truck stop carrying it. Great!”

I laughed.

“Yeah. Why can’t she just hand me my mail? No! She’s got to put it in a girly bag with girly handles. I tried to get my brother to carry through the truck stop but he wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, what did he say?”

“I said, here you carry this for me and shoved it into him but he wouldn’t take it. He pushed it away and said, fuck you so there I was stuck carrying my mail in a red girl’s bag through a truck stop.”

I snorted. “Oh brother.”

“Well anyway, that’s it. I don’t know what’s wrong with women but I’m not keeping these things anymore. I am throwing these things away. No man wants his shit in one of these and I don’t know why women think they do. I also don’t know why I’ve been keeping ‘em. I am paralyzed by these motherfuckers. Seems you are supposed to keep them for some reason but I don’t know what it is and I’m not going to do it anymore. I am not keeping these around, I am just not going to do it, so there!”