I'm in Maine and it's law that I must purchase
a Boat and Tote canvas satchel on premise
at the Freeport flagship L.L.Bean store
and then embroider it with a strict ten-character limit personalization.
But brevity is not my strong suit,
as many a prior boss
and current partner
could attest.
So, I spend the best part of an August day
crouched in a gremliness ball,
elbow crooked over knee, chin on other patella,
plotting and erasing and counting from the rental home's dining table.
I am sounding out potential bag phrases
typing into Microsoft Word, then highlighting the word
— or cluster of words —
to confirm character count.
I imagine myself holding the following bags
which possess the right number of symbols
as I walk through an urban farmer's market:
"'A, 2, D' —Buzz" (Home Alone is the best movie. Fight me).
"2-0-8-5-4!" (Because we're all Real Housewives of Potomac)
"Shh!Luxury" (Because 'Quiet Luxury' is longer than 10 characters)
"Go Bag" (which I really like, but it's a wee dark, living in the suburbs of a contentious Capitol of the country, and I feel like it's a second custom bag, not the first)
In between, I am trying the same thing
on my phone Note app,
because sometimes a small screen
feels different than a big screen.
Things that definitely don't fit but I write down, anyway:
"I'm Right on Top of That, Rose!" (Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead is cannon)
"Co-Detective" (the smartest thing to come from the stupid movie Holmes and Watson)
"Slightly-Hinged" (a good summation of my poetry)
"Skips on Treadmills" (a grave reminder that Peloton tried to take me out in February 2026)
"I coupon-clipped your way through law school, so you could make a difference in the world! And now all you can be is 'Neffler the Muffler Man!" (Shelly Long is a goddess; her character Phyllis Neffler in Troop Beverly Hills is unparalleled)
Almost none of my bezeled and brilliant ideas make the cut.
And these iteratives realizations
are followed swiftly with expletives
(many of them also longer than ten characters).
I keep trying:
"Sourdough Mom" (which is probably for the best, because it's a bit basic)
"Diana (dy-AN-uh)" (because not all people can pronounce my given name correctly, despite The People's Princess being one of the most popular humans of the twentieth, and twenty-first for that matter, centuries)
Lastly, My First and Surname, together, also misses the count.
And then it comes to me,
carried down from the sun-drenched Maine heavens
like blueberry-studded tablets from the Eastern White pine-forested mount:
"Semi-Serious" — a moniker that fits me to a T.
When I finally find this phrase, it feels like home.
Relief appears, stuffing itself into my crannies
like towels jammed into a beach bag, and
somehow there's room for just a little more hope,
another tube of SPF, another to-be-untouched book.
I make my trek to the green-lettered landmark
to select tote size, strap and bottom color, thread hue.
And then I fill in the black outlined boxes, all ten —
but somehow the form is wrong,
I have two letters to fit in, yet the boxes have run out.
Clearly the form was misprinted,
I scan the floor to flag down an employee for a correct personalization sheet.
I will this this error on their part.
My current husband peers over my shoulder,
and unhelpfully, without asking, counts aloud:
"Di, that's one-two-three-four-five —
"— six-seven-eight-nine-ten — eleven, twelve."
My phrase is twelve characters long.
Impossible.
I am, as I am so often in this life, divergent,
non-compliant, out of bounds,
the limit does exist,
so Mean Girls Lindsay Lohan you were wrong.
Dread, wet anger seeps into my heart, sweat beads on brow
like a canvas bag left too close to the shoreline at high tide.
My metaphorical sandwiches waterlog with tidal flow,
my emotional hardcover swells with seaweed-tinged waves.
"WHAT DO I DO?!"
I cry out, a little too loud, drawing attention.
Like all cast into the five stages of Sontag's grief,
I quickly make my way from rage to bargaining.
I can fix this. This is not permanent!
I make my way to the cashier, rehearsing my pitch.
After all, isn't the customer always correct?
What's two characters, among friends?
I approach the next open till,
lock eyes with the holder of my fate.
"So I realize you have a limit," I begin.
She draws her breath quickly.
I am not the first to question the fates.
"Yes, we do," she confirms.
"But I was just thinking, here I am, here you are.
"We can solve this together," I say,
putting on my consultant's solutionist's voice.
Her eyes narrow, her stance stiffens. Not great.
"Look, I'll sign a waiver, I'll attest I know it's not standard.
"I'll get a witness, a notary; this is feasible," I close.
She stares at me,
her Maine kindness pared back to brass tacks.
"Look." She starts.
She leans in, lowers her voice.
"Here's what I can do. I will write your request in, verbatim.
"I will specify that you acknowledge you are out of standard.
"I will have you sign the receipt.
"And then we let the keepers of the threads decide."
I brighten immediately;
stay of execution!
I will take an ominous maybe
over a clear-cut No any day.
She writes my phrase thrice, then states it aloud.
She prints the receipt.
I review it, re-state it aloud, sign it.
"Godspeed," she says, a curt nod that imbues gravity.
Like I am pushing off on a whaler for three years
while my soon-to-be widow wears a path into our floorboards.
And now I wait.
