TORONTO – After nearly four months of isolation, a New Yorker tote bag has found itself a greater purpose outside the dusty kitchen cabinets it once called home, “future graduate student” Samuel Nolan, 28, discovered that his tote was just the perfect size to stow away his stack of unread New Yorkers.
Nolan described himself as a modern-day academic Orpheus who can feel the love emanating from the collection of texts surrounding him was engaged in some heavy-duty cleaning, was hit with the realization that his tote could finally be of use once he glanced at his dinner table.
“Most of them are scattered all over the table, and I’ve been using all the issues sent to me after January to keep the legs steady,” Nolan said, adding that he’s even used a December issue to cover a rosé stain he made during the holidays. He explained that no one had made any attempts to move it.
“Don’t tell my roommate Illya, that table’s been in his family since his family escaped ‘something’.”
Nolan says that looking at the tote, then the Chernobyl-esque mess of magazines covering his open concept kitchen, and then back at his tote filled him with a burst of creative inspiration.
“I took a few off the table, and it felt like the spirit of Marie Kondo hit me right there. I just shoved every issue in the bag, and it all just fit perfectly.”
Nolan, then, took all the New Yorkers out of the tote to remove the shrink-wrap before placing the issues back into the tote, and hanging the branded-bag off a nearby coat-hanger for aesthetic purposes.
“I love the New Yorker, it’s just that they mail me a copy every week, and it’s difficult to keep up. I’m just glad the tote—which I swear I didn’t know came with the one year subscription—has some sort of use now because I can’t bring myself to use it for any other reason than, maybe, shoplifting from Sephora.”
He paused, before resuming, “which is something that I would never do.”
Nolan has reached out to advise that others follow his suit, as he’s recognized that his old American Apparel tote bag was an impeccable fit to store his old pastel shorts. He also stressed again, “please don’t tell Ilya. For the love of God.”
