I'm footloose and fancy free from 7:30 in the morning until 6pm; I work far away from home and I don't commute by car so I need to be able to carry stuff I need (or potentially need) throughout the day.

So very much this. Of course, we commute the same way from the same town, so no big surprise there.

Not sure what your husband's excuse is though. :)

Not sure what your husband's excuse is though.

It's a holdover from when he used to walk everywhere.

It's a holdover from when he used to walk everywhere.

I've taken to packing up a separate knapsack on the weekends with significantly less stuff, unless I know I'm going to be out an about all day, because I'm usually on a more targeted destination, but I have a feeling that, like packratitis, the loaded knapsack would be a hard habit for me break if I wanted to.

My work purse usually has wallet, keys, tampax, flashlight, lip balm, hand cream, sunglasses, pens, post-it notes, book/magazine, lunch, and various flotsam of plastic utensils, napkins, kid stuff, etc.

When I'm not to/from work, I usually put my wallet and keys into the kids' backpack, which has diapers & wipes, spare clothes, hats, sunscreen, water bottle, small toys, snacks, and napkins. All of which are very much needed. If I didn't have kids I could get away with pockets on weekends in cool weather, though my current wallet is a bit big for pants pockets.

I carried a lot more stuff when the children were younger. My load is much lighter with teens and menopause. Freedom!

This is horrifying: [link]

BRANDON, MAN. — A young man travelling on a Greyhound bus was stabbed to death and beheaded by a stranger in a horrifying act of apparently random violence.

The incident occurred on a bus travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg just before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

A man of about 18 who was sleeping with headphones on was suddenly attacked by his seat mate, according to the man who sat directly in front of them.

He was stabbed repeatedly with a large hunting knife, sending blood spraying across the interior of the bus. The driver quickly pulled over and passengers fled out the front door.

ETA:I have to say the next line of the article freaked me out so much, I didn't dare copy it into natter.

Guess who is taking a bus to visit their family on Saturday? Yikes!

Oh dear.

So, sit at the front of the bus and DON'T GO TO SLEEP!

So, sit at the front of the bus and DON'T GO TO SLEEP!

You're more practical that I am, sumi. I was thinking about investing in a Kevlar turleneck.

World's oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - The world's oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests that toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today.

It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

I don't get it.

A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second -- "How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish."

The oldest British joke dates back to the 10th Century and reveals the bawdy face of the Anglo-Saxons -- "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before? Answer: A key."

Heh.