“Darling, where’s my cell ’phone?”

“Darling, where’s my cell ’phone?”

Like many residential buildings in Beirut, the ground floor of the one I live in has multiple uses: the marble clad entrance, the car park: and, of course, shops; two of which sell mainly lady’s handbags.

What is it about handbags? Perhaps variety plays a part. Certainly, they range from the ones that are completely full with a set of keys and a lipstick, to those that can compete on equal terms with a medium sized suitcase.

It’s that last type that appeals to one lady of my acquaintance. As well as finding all the usual suspects of purse, telephone, credit cards, cigarettes, nail file, etc., she seems to be able to dig into the depths and produce a three course meal (well, she may get hungry), a change of clothes (well, she may not get the chance to go home), a couple of good books (in case she has to wait) and assorted medicaments (in case of urgent first aid). It wouldn’t surprise me if I needed emergency transportation and heard “just a moment, there’s a fold-away bicycle in here somewhere”.

In a recent survey, women in the UK claimed to have an average of forty handbags - each. Forty! Now us Brits are not that famous for our fashion consciousness, but we’ll be generous and suppose that the number here in Lebanon is much the same (and not greater). Certainly my wife seems to manage that, there’s a whole closet given over to the things. Multi-coloured, multi-fabricked and multi-sized, they do have one thing in common, they all have multiple compartments. About six in each. And that makes over two hundred and forty different places to lose, sorry, I mean put something. Like her mobile.

The standard way to find a wayward mobile ’phone is to dial the number, listen for the ring and then locate it by sound, a bit like a bat finds its prey by hearing its own squeaks reflected back to it. So in answer to her question posed above, that’s what I do, dial her number from my cell ’phone.

Oh, horror, the ring is coming from the handbag closet. OK, open the door, listen carefully and try to locate the bag. Oops, wrong first attempt, try a second one … and then the ringing stops. Why? Is the battery discharged, please not, for then there’ll be no hope of avoiding a manual trawl through all two hundred and forty compartments. Has the battery on mine emptied? No, all looks OK and the little screen even says I’m still connected, so I pick it up and hear my wife’s voice…..

“I’d really like to talk to you, but I’m not able to come to the ’phone right now, please leave me a nice chatty message”. Yeah, right!