Think pink.

I've been going through my closet-- yet again. The more I watch that "What Not to Wear" show on the TLC channel, the more I look into my closet and take out things that neither Stacy nor Clinton would approve of. I have donated another box of clothes and shoes to the "Free Clothes Closet" at the local church.

Last summer, I bought a bright pink leather handbag... as pink as pink can be, I loved that purse when I found it in SteinMart last year. I carried it all over Germany, and used it for the entire summer. At the end of August, it looked so brand new that you would have thought I'd just bought it the day before.

I took that purse out of the closet a couple of weeks ago, looked at the bright pink outside, and the pink and white-checked fabric inside and thought Why on earth did I buy this handbag?! Well, what do you do with a year-old purse that looks brand new? I was going to put it into the donation box, but it just looked too new for that. Then I remembered the teller at the local bank. Every time I walked into the bank last summer, that girl oohed and aahed over that pink purse.

Into a shopping bag went that pink handbag, and I brought it up to the bank today. As the teller was cashing a check for me, I asked her if she remembered my pink purse from last summer. Indeed she did, and at one of the end-of-summer sales last year, she bought a pair of pink and black shoes but she never could find a pink purse for herself that she liked enough to buy, and the ones she liked weren't in her price-range.

Well, how perfect was that. I told her that I've decided that bright pink was just not for me anymore, and I asked her if she would like to have that purse. She thought I was joking. I told her I had the purse right in my car and that I'd go out and bring it in to her if she was still in love with that handbag.

She told me that I made her day, especially since she had been sick last week and used up a lot of her sick days and she'd be on a limited shopping budget for the next couple of months. As she held the purse in front of her, this very nice girl who is less than half my age, I knew that I had done the right thing. She just loves that pink purse, and it suits her-- both her style and her age.

She will be pretty in pink this summer. Stacy and Clinton of What Not to Wear would very much approve. And I didn't make her day-- she made mine.