is a backpack...dedicated and quickly-accessible compartments...[and] a main hold for cargo.

I've carried that style of man-purse all my life. Earlier this year I finally replaced the small daypack I'd had for about 30 years, when the zipper finally gave out. I was tempted to spend an irrational amount of money having the zipper replaced out of sheer sentimentality...that pack and I have seen thousands of miles together over the years. But I regained my mind at the last moment and spent the same amount on a new one. Ever since I started obsessively walking every day, I spend at least an hour a day wearing a man-purse on my back.

The way I remember it, backpacks became popular among kids in the late '60s, and I guess I never grew up. We've always needed some kind of a "carryall", and just the name and style have changed over the years. Students used to carry "book bags", men always carried briefcases and "gladstone bags" and "kit bags", women always had purses. "fanny packs", rucksacks, medicine bags, messenger bags, satchels...a whole thesauraus of man-purses for our Stuff.

I stopped teasing women about their overstuffed purses long ago, when the pot met the kettle and laughed its ass off.