Issues with my Bag

The past couple of weeks I've been suffering with sack-related discomfort.

I'm sure it happens to a lot of people and I'm trying to be brave about the whole thing. Stoic. A rock. My pain is my own and my silence is my refuge, so to speak.

But I've been trying to find a solution online, because the intarwebz is where solutions are produced, documented and pirated.

My bag is a large Targa affair at the moment, sized for a much larger laptop than I carry. Lately I've decided that perhaps it is a desktop bag more than a laptop bag, designed for moving whole workstations across country along with my lunch, MP3 player, portable hard drive, some CDs and sometimes a spare alarm clock. Really.

It is a giant, over the shoulder, padded rectangle. The times I've dropped it have never resulted in damage to electronic equipment, so there is no doubt that my bag is doing its job. However, it hangs over the sides of my personal area way too much. I bump stuff with my bag everywhere I go.

Last week I climbed into my car first thing in the morning and my bag bumped the steering wheel, honking the horn in a sealed garage and nearly killing my weakened pre-coffee self.

So I started looking for something a little more efficient. The messenger-style bags like the one I have are okay, but unless I lift the strap over my head and wear it across my chest my bag makes me walk funny -- like lopsided -- and I fear that wearing my bag across my chest makes me look like I think I'm on Animal Planet hunting some small furry creature to wrestle in place in front of a camera between ads for Jenny Craig and the Porsche Cayenne. I know I'm not that guy. And everyone within sight of me knows I'm not that guy. But I fear that they don't know that I know that I'm not that guy, so I'm sure you can understand my stress.

I began my bag research at Amazon.com, and found some very nice stuff there. The problem is the wild variation in the consumer reviews. While one bag is appreciated by certain users, others seem personally offended by the sight of the same bag. I haven't found a single bag with 100% favorable reviews. It would seem that a person's bag is almost too personal to openly discuss, though I've brought mine up on elevators lately quite a bit to find out what other people think.

There is nothing definitely wrong with my bag, but the consensus is that it is simply too large and bulky to be doing the job required of it. 

Google searches were all but useless here, as "bag" is apparently a fairly popular ad word and all the links are sponsored. Likewise crawling message boards for un-endorsed bag talk is not only unproductive but in some cases quite frightening.

Essentially, I need a new bag. Smaller than my current bag but still big enough to hold my laptop, power supply, a couple of bagels and . . . hang on . . . about 30 Diet Coke caps at any time. Extra pockets are bonus points, but I need a bag that hangs ergonomically and yet doesn't look like I'm dragging my bag into the woods to document nature or whatever.

I found one I like at REI, but I totally fear that it embodies all that is outdoorsy about bags and (while no doubt comfortable) I fear being mistaken for someone who would not physically lock up on the pavement when getting too far from a Starbucks like those shopping carts with the sensors when someone pushes them past the yellow line. 

This is one of those minor things regular people with normal thought processes talk about casually and then solve on a whim with a trip to any store. It also qualifies as one of those minor things which is gradually consuming more and more of my emotional well-being until eventually I will collapse into a useless puddle of panic, so I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have. Not about therapy, so much. More about my bag.