the passionate ailurophile

While we were watching the Three Stooges Marathon on channel 38 on New Year’s Eve, I saw a commercial for the bag pictured here. I was impressed with how much such a small bag could hold, as well as all of the compartments it has, so I decided to order one. Only, I didn’t call the 800 number provided…I went to the website to order. That website is located at BuxtonBag.com, but be warned, it has an auto-play video on the site. If you visit the site, you can mouse over it to see controls where you can turn it off.

If you don’t like talking to pushy phone salespeople, do order from the website. Yeah, they make you go through screens where they try to sell you more shit, but it’s easier to bypass those than it is to shut an annoying phone salesperson up. Also, skip that *free* whosit, that *My Lil’ Reminder* thing. It’s NOT free, they hit you up for an additional $6.95 for shipping and handling for it. I did opt for it, and they sent me two of them…I only paid the S&H for one. But the thing is a cheap piece o’ shit, not even worth the seven bucks…so I suggest you skip it when ordering.

The bag itself is great. I opted for the red one, as pictured here. Yes, it’s small, you can’t fit magazines or large books in it. It’s NOT the size of a regular backpack, it’s more like a purse. But you CAN fit a mass-market paperback book in it, as well as tons of other stuph. It has a cajillion compartments in it, for easy organizing.

I was able to fit most of the crap that I usually carry around into this thing. Wallet, various pills such as ibuprofen and UTI pills, band-aids. Makeup stuph, including my Bare Escentuals compact and my Mary Kay lipstick case (which now contains only BE lip products…I *big puffy heart* their Buzz Latte lip balm).

I can also fit in things like Mike’s reading glasses, for when we go out to eat and he’s not wearing a shirt with pockets. There is also a cell phone pouch, which happens to fit my Cyclops perfectly.  This pouch is located at the bottom of the shoulder strap, just above the main part of the bag, as you should be able to see from the picture.

Even after putting most of my shit into this bag, there are still a few unused zippered compartments.  It really does hold a LOT…much more than my infamous Dollar Tree Little Black Bag. I bought that bag as an emergency measure about a year ago, when we went up to Portland for my birthday.  All of the Sea Dogs games that we had tickets to got snowed out, but we still had reservations for dinner at Fore Street.  I didn’t want to haul my Hugh Jass tote bag into this very nice restaurant, and I’d forgotten to pack a smaller purse.  So, since we had all of this free time due to lack of ball games, I walked over to the strip mall near the hotel we were staying at, to try to find an acceptable bag either at Dollar Tree, or at the Goodwill shop next door.

I got this decent little black bag for…you guessed it…one dollar…it IS Dollar Tree, after all.  It served the purpose, and I’ve used it several times since, but I really wanted some sort of all-purpose bag that looked nice, but held more stuph.  The Buxton Bag is it for me.  I only wish it had gotten here before we went to the theater, to see Monty Python’s ‘Spamalot’.  I used the Dollar Tree bag for that.  But that bag is not all that much smaller than the Buxton Bag, yet the Buxton Bag holds a LOT more stuph, and looks good, too.  It is made of real leather, and it’s buttery soft.  It really can go anywhere, it looks that good.  At $19.95, this is an excellent value.

The only other downside I can think of is that they take FOREVER to ship.  But it was worth the wait…I love this little bag!