The White Purse

Tuesday was popcorn day; every student at McMillian Elementary knew that. One quarter on Tuesday morning, given to a PTA member, meant one brown paper bag full of buttery popcorn in the afternoon. Every Tuesday morning I would remember to ask my mom for a quarter... right before running out the door to catch the bus.
Fridays were a whole different matter. You could buy a red licorice rope on Fridays after lunch if you had the patience to wait in a short line at recess. I had never tasted a red licorice rope before, but they looked even better than popcorn.
The licorice ropes cost a whole dollar. I didn't have a steady source of income when I was seven so I tried what worked on popcorn day - I asked my mom. She said that would be fine and handed me a faded green one dollar bill.
The next morning after I ate breakfast and changed into my school clothes, I went in search of something very special in my dress up box. My dress up box was a large cardboard box sitting in the corner of my closet. The box held moms old high heels covered in pink satin fabric, some Halloween costumes, many old sunday dresses, and a few garage sale treasures.
I dug threw all of the dresses and costumes until I found what I was looking for at the bottom of the box; a white vinyl purse. The purse was bigger than a shoe box and had a hideous gold broach on the front. With my one dollar bill bouncing around in the extra large purse I trotted out into the living room, ready to go to school.
As my mother looked me up and down, this is what she saw: A three and a half foot tall girl with a two foot wide purse.
I remember exactly what I looked like that day, and I know I looked ridiculous. But, my mother didn't say a word about the purse, she just told me to have a great day at school and helped me catch the bus.
The whole day my purse and dollar bill waited in my backpack. The backpack was stowed in the cubby at the back of the class; the cubby with my name on it. At lunch time I slung the white purse over my shoulder and feeling like I was the most sophisticated person in the whole world, I strolled down to the licorice line.
Standing at the back of the line I noticed no one else had a purse. Some of the kids gave me interesting looks as I waited my turn that day. I got to the front of the line and pulled out my one dollar bill. May I again remind you that my large dress up purse was the size of a saddle bag and could have held a cinder block along with my one dollar bill!
I received my very first licorice rope and walked over to a grassy spot to eat it. At the end of recess, the bell rang and I returned to my classroom. I stored my white purse in my backpack again and it never returned to school.
I was not teased about the purse and I didn't get a million odd looks in the licorice line, but somehow my second grade mind figured out that my white vynlpurse was not as cool as I thought it was.