I listened to the 99% Invisible podcast episode “Pockets,” where the topic of discussion was, uh, pockets. It was all about the evolution of pockets through the ages, with the commentary mainly centered around how women’s pockets have gone, in the last few hundred years, from large and incredibly useful to pitifully small and virtually nonexistent, or at least useless, and replaced by handbags. It also mentions how men’s pockets have proliferated in the same period of time, so that the average man’s suit in 1944 contained 24 (!) pockets and 70 (!!!) buttons. It was quite an interesting talk about the importance of having pockets – mainly, how they give you peace of mind, since you know that everything you need is with you at all times. It’s also interesting how the differences in men’s and women’s pockets have partially served to widen the gap between the genders – men’s abundance of pockets equals freedom, security, and usefulness, while women’s lack of pockets leads to a greater degree of helplessness and worry. Anyway this really is something I never would have even thought of thinking about prior to today…and now, I’m all the more well-versed in pocket lore.