Now it appears that the company is prepared to part with many of its 16 subsidiaries practically for the asking, so that the company can bestow all its peach-fuzzy kisses on a few younger and more prominent brands like Juicy Couture and Kate Spade.

WWD reports:

Of course, those are the analysts talking, not the sellers. As for McComb himself:

Well, maybe not the biggest thing.

Me on page 292 of Modern Bride's summer issue.

I shared an elevator with event planning rockstar Preston Bailey (who told my Aunt Kim that she "was really workin' it" with her dress), met Molly Shannon's videographer, which was a bit of serendipity since we hired Molly Shannon's photographer Teness Herman.

Best of all I got this gorgeous, heavy crystal award for being an "innovative trendsetter" on the one year anniversary, to the day, of the launch of my business. Color me flattered to the nth degree. There were no
tear filled speeches or dancing showgirls, but here are some other highlights and observations of the evening:

* "Business chic" (listed on the invitation) resulted in everything from jeans to a ball gown.

* Though I fully expected to hate Starr Jones, in person she was actually funny and gave a very sweet speech before presenting her event planner David Tutera with his award.

* Ashleigh Banfield is one kick ass dancer. She's a great reporter too, but man can this chick rock out.

* A sweet woman named Brooke, from Macy's Bridal Marketing Department, called me out on my blogging and offered us any registry help we need. Wow, people really read this!

* Trista and Ryan (from The Bachelorette) are still together! I was going to chat with Trista (who was a presenter) because her wedding was at The Lodge at Rancho Mirage, where our guests are going to stay. I had an opportunity on the way back from the bathroom but I chickened out.

* For any brides who are lucky enough to have the cash to consider a wedding at the Ritz Carlton Battery Park, the food was divine, the views were spectacular and the bathrooms were kick ass.

* We got a 17 pound gift bag, with all sorts of wonderful goodies, but my favorite was the red velvet cupcake from Cakeman Raven (another one of the honorees). For me, there's nothing like coming home, kicking my shoes off and hunkering down with a dee-licious cupcake. (Does anyone wonder why I'm always bitching that I need to lose weight?)

Well, I'm a Modern Bride trendsetter. You just never know.

Wednesday 7th

Cars and gals: Volvo , which was the car of choice for socially conscious New Yorkers before they all said "screw it" and put down for the S.U.V. , hosts awards today for unsung heroes -people nominated by their local communities for making a difference, with the winner getting $50,000 donated to the charity of her choice. It all goes down in Times Square , the city's great big tourist bug-zapper. Jim Belushi emerges from hiding to host; your panel of judges includes Paul Newman (great actor!), Maya Lin (great architect!), Eunice Kennedy Shriver (great gams!), Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (great advocate for N.Y.C. schools!) and Bill Bradley (he was available). Meanwhile , designer Kate Spade packs husband/designer Andy Spade into one of her pert purses and strikes a dainty pose at the National Arts Club, where InStyle (Time Inc.'s big mooing cash cow) hosts a fête launching Ms. Spade's happy three-book series: Style , Manners (neither of which we have) and Occasions (which we also don't have, because we lack the first two). Meanwhile, Soprano Jamie-Lynn DiScala , who has the Heidi Fleiss grimace down in that new TV movie, Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss , hops off the cover of this month's FHM to helm a party celebrating 40 years of Ford Mustang . She co-hosts with Anne Heche, whose career was hotter when she was a lesbian , before she became a Smuggie ….

[The Volvo for Life Awards, Times Square Studios, 44th Street and Broadway, 7 to 11 p.m., 612-338-3900; Kate Spade book party, National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.,

212-522-8349, by invitation only; Ford Mustang's 40th-anniversary party,

Manhattan Automobile Company, 787 11th Avenue, 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.,

212-843-8040, by invitation only.]

Thursday 8th

Eric Stoltz's voice mail says, "You have reached the voice-mail box of Eleanor Roosevelt! Please leave a message!", so we asked him why. "I just always loved Eleanor. I adore all the Roosevelts, but Eleanor especially," he said. Tonight he's part of an annual reading of Dante's Inferno at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. "We're reading the Inferno on Maundy Thursday, which is actually the day that the book took place on, for all your perverse Dante fans who think that's important," said Mr. Stoltz. "I love doing spoken-word things and listening to spoken word and reading things-I'm a big fan of words in general." Look at Mr. Smartypants ! He's also in Sly Fox , co-starring Richard Dreyfuss , Bronson Pinchot and Elizabeth Berkley . "It's a big ole Broadway cast, and it's not a musical-very rare these days," he said. We heard that Cameron Crowe promised him a role in every film he makes. "It's true! I guess it all started since I worked with him on his first movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High . I just had this instinct that he would make a really wonderful director, and I kept nudging him toward that. And, out of obligation or duty or appreciation, that came about." Meanwhile, several blocks west, the Friends of Harlem Dowling are benefiting from its All-Star Gala as Patti LaBelle belts, the president of the N.B.A. Players Association, William Hunter , avoids Kobe questions, and the incredible shrinking Al Roker (is it just us, or is getting your daily weather report like watching Stephen King's Thinner ? ) reminds you to wear your gaily-printed Easter-season galoshes tomorrow.

[Dante's Inferno Marathon, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, 9 p.m. to midnight,

212-316-7540; Friends of Harlem Dowling All-Star Gala, Apollo Theater, 253 West 125th Street, 7 p.m., 212-531-5305; Sly Fox opens tomorrow, Ethel Barrymore Theater, 243 West 47th Street, 8 p.m., 212-239-6200.]

Friday 9th

If you've seen Secret Window , you know that the secret is that it sucks . So after your nooner with the girl from marketing (highlights, French-manicured toes) , scurry to Yorkville Library for a screening of High Noon and a feast of Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly . For those Nerve gals who still think men in 2004 want sluts for girlfriends, there's a Great American Amateur Striptease Contest at Webster Hall. (Note to the ladies : This trend of taking striptease classes in an effort to turn on your boyfriends? Honey, the whole appeal behind the striptease is that someone else is doing them, a'ight? He already knows what you look like naked.) That said, leave your boyfriend at home tonight unless you're prepared to see him reach "high noon."

[ High Noon , Yorkville Library, 222 East 79th Street, 3 p.m., 212-744-5824; Amateur Burlesque, Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, 10 p.m., 212-353-1600.]

Saturday 10th

Dueling street festivals! The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center , whose name takes too long to say, sponsors the annual Greenwich Avenue Summer(?!) Festival. Watch everyone bust out the Birks and flip-flops too early and pad amongst the antiques, pottery, chunky jewelry, food stalls ( burp !) and "ephemera" (which is how we refer to ex-boyfriends). Ten blocks or so north , there's the higher-strung 23rd Street Spring Festival -or Stress-tival, more like, with the continuous entertainment, Smuggie moms with double-wide strollers and inevitable people offering back rubs to those who find it relaxing to straddle an apparatus for 10 minutes in public while a total stranger digs her elbows into your vertebral column and asks every 30 seconds, "You like?"

[LGBT Greenwich Avenue Summer Festival, Greenwich Avenue between Sixth Avenue and West 12th Street, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., 212-620-7310; 212-764-6330; 23rd Street Spring Festival, 23rd Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues.]

Sunday 11th

Easter Sunday, and New Yorkers of the Christian faith gather in churches while some spill out into Central Park for Tavern on the Green's Easter Eggstravaganza . There's an egg hunt -or as the French like to call it, " une chasse des oeufs " -where Brearley-, Trinity-, Chapin- and Spence-bound tots elbow and clothesline each other as characters from Alice in Wonderland entertain with magic tricks, face-painting and balloon-sculpting (Alice will occasionally steal behind a large boulder to smoke). The Mad Hatter's Easter Bonnet Contest has four new categories: "Loveliest Little Lady Hat," "Best Boy Bonnet," "Cutest Canine Cap" and "Kitschiest Kitty Bonnet." "We started that last year, and it was a hoot!" hooted Shelley Clark , the spokeswoman. "Last year, there was this wonderful little pug that came with a bonnet with a veil and pearls …. People take this really seriously! The person that got the grand prize of a thousand dollars last year was not the crowd favorite, and she-I think it was a teenage girl-and the person everyone wanted to win almost came to fisticuffs!" Make that mimosa a double ….

[Tavern on the Green's Easter Eggstravaganza, Central Park West and 67th Street, 12:30 to 4 p.m., 212-873-3200.]

Monday 12th

April's always the cruelest month if you're a poet , and today the Authors' Guild toasts The New Yorker 's poetry editor, Alice Quinn , who's held that title for 17 years and thus has the right to refer to "Mr. Shawn." Also getting a glass raised in his direction is former poet laureate Robert Pinsky . (He's translated Dante-what the heck have you done lately?) For those who don't scan, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliot and Beyoncé perform at Madison Square Garden.

[Authors' Guild Foundation 12th Annual Benefit Dinner, the Metropolitan Club, 1 East 60th Street, 6.30 p.m., 212-594-7931; Verizon Ladies First Tour 2004, Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m., 212-307-7171.]

Tuesday 13th

The round table is empty and the cigars have gone cold, but Dorothy Parker -the Eve Ensler of the Jazz Age-is brought to life by prime-time moms Edie Falco , Cynthia Nixon and others at a benefit in a Tribeca loft. Isaac Mizrahi, who will be at the reading, told us that along with Shakespeare's sonnets, Miss Parker is his favorite bedside reading, but that he was disappointed that "she was a reluctant slapper -only 90 percent of what could have been. I suppose that's what upsets me about myself: that I can't fully bring myself to be the sinning bitch I'd like to be." Or you can steal off to Brooklyn to catch Bill Murray -he wuz robbed on Oscar night, we tell ya!-being chatted up by the dreadlocked New York Times movie critic, Elvis Mitchell .

[What Fresh Hell Is This?: Performing Dorothy Parker to Benefit the Drama Department, Tribeca Rooftop, 2 Desbrosses Street, 7 p.m., 212-633-9108; An Evening with Bill Murray, B.A.M., 30 Lafayette Avenue, 9:30 p.m., 718-636-4100.]

Wednesday 14th

Benefits in bloom! First up, a benefit for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society at Asprey. On your way downtown, buy some crimson lippy or simply hop into several fountains, because the theme for the TriBeCa Ball will be La Dolce Vita . Prince Charles is the committee's Royal Patron, but since black tie is optional , it's clear that he and the coltish offspring will be tending to more important matters across the pond. The usual suspects abound , stumbling across Gotham Hall's dance floor, and the other half will be found at the New Yorker for New York Awards at the Waldorf-Astoria, where Walter Cronkite will be honored, among others. Have you had enough? Slip out of your wet frock and check out the first performance of Neil LaBute's The Distance from Here . Wannabe siren Anna Paquin stars.

[The Committee for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Bill Bernback Memorial Dinner, Asprey, 725 Fifth Avenue, 6.30 p.m. by invitation only; TriBeCa Ball, Gotham Hall, 1356 Broadway, 7 p.m., by invitation only; New Yorker for New York Awards, Waldorf-Astoria, 7 p.m., by invitation only; The Distance from Here , the Duke, 229 West 42nd Street, 8 p.m., www.MCCTheater.org.]

1. Stop pretending to adore The Osbournes . Yes, there is still a chuckle or two to be had, but after Sharon Osbourne admitted to Barbara Walters that she had mailed boxes of her own excrement to her adversaries, the show somehow lost its freshness. P.S.: Didn't you think Barbara, in her breathless attempt to be groovy and Osbourne-positive, was less than appropriately horrified by Sharon's poo-parcel admissions?

2. Join the Doris Day lobby. Liz Smith ( New York Post , Nov. 22) was 100 percent on the argent when she exhorted us all to make nuisances of ourselves until the Academy of Motion Pictures ponies up an honorary Oscar for multitalented, fresh-faced Doris. So much more than just another perky blonde, D.D. achieved the kind of multimedia cultural penetration that Madonna and J. Lo can only dream about-and had a great pair of gams, to boot! If you are about to dismiss this resolution as the drivelings of just another tired old AMC queen, then you are obviously overdue for a screening of Teacher's Pet , Calamity Jane , Pillow Talk , Move Over Darling , That Touch of Mink , Julie , The Pajama Game or any other of her chicly fresh blockbusters. Send excrement-free Doris petitions to 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, Calif., 90211.

3. Stop pretending you don't find President George W. Bush kinda hot. No matter what your persuasion, you have to admit that Dubya's earnest Texan big-daddy assertiveness and well-toned bod has a certain je ne sais fresh.

4. Stop picking holes in Michael Jackson! 2002 has been open season on the artist formerly known as the Gloved One. The poor thing gets all the accumulated flak that the press can't fling at other celebs because they're too scared of losing their access. So leave the freak alone-it's no skin off your nose!

5. Stop dressing like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver ! That goes for you and you and you. Previous exhortations in this column to reduce the slut quotient in your personal style have been met with rebellious indifference. I'm giving you one more chance to refresh your look: Rent the Scorsese classic, take a long, hard look at Jodie's hot pants and decide if you think they're wartime-appropriate. And while you're at it, stop pretending to be an expert on Middle Eastern affairs and support the country that gives you the freedom to flaunt yourself à la Jodie in Taxi Driver . Cancel any planned European vacations until they-France and Germany in particular-adopt a more U.S.-friendly tone.

7. Refresh your mind. Reread the books you read when you were young and stupid and didn't really understand what you were reading, but pretended to. I'm rereading the fetid and fabulous Nana by Emile Zola, and realizing how many of the unsavory nuances were lost on me in my youth.

8. Stop going to trendy yoga classes. That competitive über -trendy New York lunacy-not to mention New York Times honcho Howell Raines' apparent fascination with the practice-has taken the granola out of yoga. The frantic hoopla to get into ultra-hip yoga classes has me longing for a wildly unspiritual, shrill, you're-in-my-space-bitch, high-voltage Jane Fonda aerobics session (try the Lucille Roberts at 80 Fifth Avenue at 14th Street, 255-3999).

9. Get TiVo. If you are seeking genuine spiritual calm, you can only really find it with TiVo. This life-changing digital system, which costs a measly $12.95 per month, offers you a chakra-opening, commercial-free television reality devoid of the worldly cares which come from worrying about missing favorite shows. Jerry Springer , Dynasty reruns-all can be waiting alluringly for you when you return home after a tough day. Call 877-BUY-TIVO and discover the real meaning of Zen.

10. Monogram your life. Forget about L.V. and Y.S.L. and C.D.-this year it's all about you, so go ahead and refresh your garments and other artifacts with your initials. Muffy and Buffy gentiles should hit the Monogram Shop (various locations and www.themonogramshops.com), while Jews and homosexuals must take the chicer, less uptight, iron-on summer-camp name-tag route at NameLabels.com.

11. Why not refresh your stale-smelling apartment with a jasmine-honeysuckle-gardenia olfactory orgasm for the New Year? Wait until the steam heat is blasting, and then spray your radiators liberally with Kate Spade's new eau de parfum ($58 for 1.7 oz.). Inhale deeply.

12. Re gender refreshment: Feb. 25 is the Doris Day Animal Foundation Spay Day. Happy New Year!

Upon further inquiry, my wife remembered that the young man had said something about having just graduated from college. I guessed he wanted advice on breaking into journalism.

So I was surprised and perhaps a little disappointed when the graduate called back a few minutes later and announced the true purpose of his call. He didn't want my advice on writing or anything else. His name was Isaac Dovere, and he wanted to sell me a set of knives.

Isaac explained that he'd just graduated from Johns Hopkins and was on his way to do graduate work at the University of Chicago in the fall. In the meantime, he'd landed a summer job selling high-end cutlery for an enterprise called the Cutco Corporation. He frankly, if gently, confessed that he didn't know me or my work from a hole in the wall. He'd simply consulted the Browning alumni directory and discovered I lived conveniently within a few blocks of his parents' apartment. Now he wanted to know if I'd be able to spare a few minutes to hear his pitch.

I wasn't under any obligation to buy anything-not a single butter knife. What mattered, I gathered, was that he could show his bosses over at Cutco that he was pounding the pavement.

So I agreed to get together with Isaac to help the guy out. I might even be amenable to making a purchase, I figured. A sharp knife is one of life's little pleasures. And believe it or not, the evening before my demonstration I met a guy at a cocktail party (don't ask me how the subject of cutlery came up) who'd stated that he'd bought a set of Cutco knives a decade earlier under similar circumstances and hadn't regretted his decision for one minute. That fellow even had a memory of his demonstration that involved the salesman cutting through a dime with a pair of Cutco scissors as if it were putty.

Sure enough, when Isaac appeared on my doorstep the next evening dressed in a jacket and tie, one of the first things he did (after impressing me, and several other adults and children I'd assembled for the spectacle, with the storied provenance of his merchandise) was to make mincemeat of a Roosevelt dime.

I honestly wasn't all that impressed with the dime-defacing demonstration. Isaac said he'd undergone three days of training before Cutco let him loose on the public. And from the meticulous way he was going at the coin, approaching it from an angle, it looked to me as if an entire afternoon had been spent mastering this sleight of hand.

"It's made of high-carbon stain-resistant steel," the salesman announced as he bisected the hapless coin with his scissors, officially known as the Super Shears and retailing for an astonishing $73. "You can cut dimes for years."

I took a pass, preferring my currency intact. However, the demonstration wowed our kids, who began to agitate for a pair of Super Shears with the sort of enervating intensity usually reserved for $30 flip-flops at Marcia D.D. or a Kate Spade bag.

Quashing their protest-and after some unpleasantness over who got to keep the mangled dime-we moved on. "The next thing I'll do is show you the most expensive set of knives in the world," Isaac said. Pregnant pause. "The knives in your drawer."

The point was that it was more costly to keep replacing cheap knives than to make a one-time purchase that would become part of our children's inheritance. And if we weren't satisfied with our purchase, Isaac himself-apparently even if he'd landed a tenure-track position at the U. of Chicago's esteemed Department of Interdisciplinary Studies by that point-would return to retrieve the knives and refund our money.

Furthermore, he went on, those dull excuses for cutting implements in our kitchen were health hazards. Isaac painted a vision of some Hieronymus Bosch–style hell happening in the drawer to the left of our dishwasher. "Wooden-handle knives suck up all sorts of blood and bacteria," he explained. "They've opened knives and found maggots!"

Even I was beginning to believe that purchasing a new set of steak knives was an issue of public safety (just as soon as a Hazmat team removed my old set) when Isaac stumbled. He didn't know it, but he'd unwittingly tread into a esoteric corner of the cutlery trade with which I was intimately familiar.

I'm talking about the field of novelty kitchen tools-devices like combination cheese-graters and corkscrews, "sporks" (pronged spoons that double as forks), adjustable melon-ballers. The reason I know about such things is that my father once had an advertising agency, and people would constantly send him samples of such "premium" items in the hope that he'd purchase thousands of them on behalf of his clients, who would then hand them out to their own customers as a gesture of good will. To this day, our kitchen drawer is crowded with contraptions that say "Your name here" on the side.

So when Isaac began singing the praises of the Cutco Spatula Spreader-dubbing it "the 60-second sandwich-maker"-I started to tune out, even though there was still an hour remaining in our demonstration. (At that point, we pleaded dinner reservations.)

How did I feel about this invasive form of networking? Cutco, Isaac boasted, doesn't advertise on TV. Well, yeah, but that's because they hire salespeople with prep-school pedigrees whose parents' friends can afford $41 Spatula Spreaders. Nonetheless, I didn't hold the evening against Isaac personally. It's a summer job, nothing more, nothing less-a conversation-starter on one's résumé years down the road.

Before he left, however, I agreed to purchase one Petit Carver for $63 and a paring knife for $38. The $805 set of knives he first suggested were simply out of the question, as much for moral as financial reasons. The friends I'd invited for the demo bought nothing at all, claiming they always eat out.

And when I declined his invitation to write down the names of five or 10 friends I thought would appreciate a free demonstration, Isaac, to his credit, betrayed his disappointment ever so briefly-even though I was apparently jeopardizing his chances of winning some sort of scholarship contest based on sales.

However, in an effort to keep Isaac in the running and help out a fellow Browning boy, I offered to share his phone number with anyone who's interested. But you better act now; he leaves for graduate school in September.

It was a life of simple pleasures. But no more. The sanctity of my home has been trampled upon by vile, insidious intruders.

I have mice.

Yes, plural. There is no such thing as a mouse. You spot one and you know the door is always open, so to speak, for others.

Almost everyone I know has been invaded by the mouse brigade at some time or another. Friends who live in to-die-for apartments in SoHo, the Upper East Side. All over the city, New Yorkers are well acquainted with vermin.

Not me. Three happy years without a peep. Believe me, if I had one in my midst, I would have known. I have mouse paranoia. Every time I hear a suspicious noise, I mute the TV and listen. And listen.

Usually, it's a false alarm. But not this time.

It happened in the wee hours on a Sunday. After sitting at my computer all night, tapping out a press release for the fashion designer who basically pays my rent, I felt punch drunk. Then, peripherally, I detected some rapid movement. What the …

Nooooo!

It was. A mouse.

I picked up the phone to call the-well, doorman would be too official. My building has 24-hour watchmen. They only get up to open the door if you've forgotten your keys. I called the watchman on duty at 4 A.M., a guy named Jesus. Emergencia!

Jesus came up straightaway and had a leisurely look around. "Chica, there no mouse," he said. "You think you see mouse but there no mouse."

I saw it. I did. It ran toward the radiator.

"Get some peanut butter and some traps," he said calmly.

Exhausted, I still lay wide-eyed in a fetal position for an hour. As the morning light appeared, I fell asleep, fully clothed (including footwear, in case I had to make a fast break), with all the lights on.

The next morning, I set out in search of mousetraps.

The proprietor of the corner store-a burly Palestinian guy who dresses like a rap star-chuckled at my request. "Honey, you look terrible. You want some peanut butter, too?"

The peanut butter-as-bait thing really gave me the creeps. What ever happened to old-fashioned cheese? I bought four glue traps and headed home.

At 7 P.M., I walked over to a neighborhood restaurant to meet my aunt for dinner. She's deathly afraid of mice. When I moved into my apartment, she went over every square inch, stuffing even the tiniest holes with steel wool.

She couldn't get behind the radiator. I was reluctant to mention the sighting but, if things got worse, I might have to seek refuge at her nearby apartment. Over dessert, I casually slipped it in.

"Oh. My. God. No !" she shuddered. "You saw it by the radiator? I knew it! We have to get back there."

She insisted I stay with her but I demurred. I was at war. A decampment from my home-office would be tantamount to surrender.

But I needed troops-preferably male. I cajoled a guy-one I don't particularly like-to come by and help me hold down the fort. At midnight, he went into the kitchen. "I saw your mouse," he said walking briskly toward the front door. "Get some peanut butter." Yeah, and don't ever come back !

I spent a restless night at auntie's.

For the next two days, I worked at home. Mickey never made an appearance; too tired from working the night shift. Before nightfall, I would pack a fresh bag and head to my friend's TriBeCa penthouse to strategize.

The exterminator was scheduled to visit on Saturday, but something had to be done right away. I instituted a 24-hour mouse patrol. The watchmen were ordered to go up hourly with the spare key to check the traps.

Popo, the 60-year-old handyman, nicknamed "the Cat" for his mouse-catching prowess, became the leader of the battalion. I love Popo. He has a thick Spanish accent, wears his shock of gray hair in an electrified style à la Don King, and stalks around in old, grimy clothes. He's usually a little tipsy-he came to my apartment one morning to unclog the toilet carrying a 40-ounce bottle of beer. But, like the mouse, he's always there. Glassy-eyed and wobbly, but reliable nonetheless.

I phoned the building every day from my penthouse retreat. "I ain't caught nada," Popo would say in a singsong voice.

On Thursday, I desperately offered Popo 50 bucks to sleep in my apartment and catch the critter. I pictured Popo chillin' on my Martha Stewart sheets-white brushed cotton with pink rosebuds, bought on sale at Kmart-gulping malt liquor and watching soft-core porn by the flicker of my Diptyque candles. He declined.

At 9 A.M. on Friday, there was a news flash from Brooklyn. Mickey Dead . Still, I hung out with friends all day, wary of reclaiming my territory.

At 10 P.M., I gingerly entered my apartment. Within minutes, I heard something. Standing on the coffee table, I called my favorite watchman. He wouldn't come. Everyone had heard about Popo's victory. But I wasn't hallucinating. I knew there were more. I could feel it.

At 11:30 P.M., I saw a tiny mouse run under my bed. I quickly vacated the premises, returning early Saturday to meet the exterminator. Popo and Jesus watched me enter the lobby with my little Kate Spade canvas tote in hand and bigger bags under my eyes. The exterminator had already been up there. It would be fine, they said.

How could I be sure? The whole place was tainted! No amount of antibacterial spray could ever make it clean again!

After days of scurrying all over town and almost no sleep, I succumbed to battle fatigue. Passers-by stared at me sobbing uncontrollably as Popo took my arm and led the way up to my apartment. For the first time in almost a week, I fell asleep in my own bed.

At 8 A.M. on Sunday, there was a tapping … at the door. Popo, holding the spare key, was happy to see that I was actually home. It had been quiet all night, but I sent him into the kitchen to check the traps. I crawled back under the covers. On the way out, he handed me the key. Was my beloved Popo deserting me? Mickey II was still on the loose!

He rushed toward the front door and I followed, waving the key, imploring him to re-enlist. Wait … what was that behind his back? He held up the exterminator's super glue trap with a tiny gray ball stuck to it.

That night, I stopped by the brownstone where Popo rents a room. I had a care package for him: a 40-ounce bottle of Olde English, $50 and a new coat-courtesy of my designer connection.

Things have been all quiet on the home front ever since. I won the battle. The war, however, persists.

What was I doing there, I thought, wasting my time on a Wednesday morning? Was I waiting for hot theater tickets? A handout of surplus diamonds? Viagra for females ? Nope. I was at the annual Kate Spade sample sale. I, and the hundreds of women with me, were in search of the perfect bag.

"I've been waiting for an hour and 45 minutes," said Christina, a tall, blond jewelry designer from northwest Connecticut. "I got on the train at 6 in the morning to come down here. I tell myself that I'm not going to spend a lot of money, but you get swept up in the frenzy … For what they are, they don't seem worth it, but when you have a fetish you have a fetish."

What was she looking for?

"Basic black. I bought a rattlesnake print one a few years ago and it just didn't last through the seasons."

I am more of a fuzzy-sweater woman than a DKNY girl. My friends had dragged me to the sample sale in an attempt to dress me more appropriately. They are fed up with my current choice of bag, a red rip-stop nylon backpack left over from college, which I enjoy because of its large size, its uncanny ability to deflect dirt and spilled beer, and its general overall comfort.

But in a city that provides a series of challenges, perhaps one of the largest for women is the decision of what purse will suit all of her needs. How does one leave the apartment in the morning and carry makeup, wallet, checkbook, newspaper, book? How does one then add the items needed to be prepared not to go home before a spontaneous evening out (different makeup, more money)? And what about being ready for the off-chance that she might not go home at all? Downtown girls have recently adopted the shoulder-slung, back-breaking, utilitarian messenger bag. Sensible uptown girls who believe firmly in the value of a good Frédéric Fekkai haircut make it clear the Kate Spade bag is the way to go.

If you don't know by now, Kate Spade founded her business in 1993 and her minimalist, boxy bag with a snap clasp has driven her company's annual profits to $28 million. She designs bags in many textures and colors, but the most popular bag she sells is made of black nylon, lined inside in either black or patterned material, with a simple white label on the outer top reading "Kate Spade New York." It retails at Bloomingdale's for approximately $250. It is a bag that could be described at best as "plain," but there is a stigma-or is it an

aura?-that goes with this purse. In the last few years, this bag has worked its way into the uniform of well-dressed-but not ridiculously wealthy-young professional women. A woman who wears a Kate Spade is image-conscious, clean-cut and able to shell out some, but not too much, cash. "The Kate Spade bag," declared my co-worker Daphne, a fashion-conscious, Upper East Side advertising saleswoman, "is what you buy when you can't afford Prada yet."

So I gamely lined up.

Judging by the women in line hoping to buy this magical bag for half of its standard price, Daphne had pegged the Spade shopper. No one was over 35, the wildest color of suit was beige and, from the amount of anxious watch checking going on, everyone seemed to be missing work. In short, they all looked a lot like me. Well, not that much like me.

But don't get me wrong. As an avid bargain-hunter, I came willingly. But after waiting half an hour and moving only a few feet ahead in line, I begin to think this whole quest was pretty surreal. Behind me, a woman at least six months pregnant stood swaying slightly and clutching her large black Kate Spade tote. "I'm here to buy the Kate Spade diaper bag," she said. "It'll be priced here at $275 as opposed to $450. It's worth the wait."

A young girl wearing a plaid uniform from Chapin, the private girls' school on 84th Street and East End Avenue, waited bare-legged and shivering. "I have about four Kate Spades, but I want something bright for summer," she said. "I might not make it back to class, though."

Jason Hoffman, a financial adviser for Prudential Securities, was the only male in the line. "I'm here for my fiancée. I'm going to try to find her something in leather," he said. Then he leaned in. "But I tell you, this is a great place to meet women."

The doorman shouted at us to visit the A.T.M. before entering. Women were staggering out with plastic bags full of Kate Spade, admitting to spending $1,000 inside. Finally, I reached the front and was ushered into the elevator by a gruff but friendly superintendent named Joe. "Two thousand people yesterday. It's been crazy!" he said. He let us out of the elevator into the showroom, which is spare, white and elegant. Tall, thin women wearing knee-skimming skirts, ballet flats and upswept hair glided from room to room purposefully, checking merchandise, pricing and preparing for further throngs of shoppers. I wrestled past a brunette in a slate Calvin Klein suit into the room where the sale was taking place, and was surprised to find myself anxious and sweaty.

Would I find a bag? There were so many! Striped ones, fuchsia ones, bags made of straw and plastic. Some sparkled, some had interesting textures, others had silk tassels. There were bags so big that I could take my golden retriever, Sam, along for the day, and bags so small that all I could fit into it would be a smallish tube of lipstick.

And then I saw it. My perfect bag was made of green nylon, sitting in a row of six others just like it. It was about the size of a large loaf of bread. This was the one. It was so square! It had zippers! And snaps! And green handles! Not to mention the little label. It cost $90, hardly a bargain objectively, but at other places this bag cost much, much more. And was green. Green!

I snapped it up and headed to the checkout line, where there was a further delay of 30 minutes because the saleswomen were having trouble counting all of the money. People talked excitedly about their new bags, how perfect they were, what they would match. I eyed them warily and clutched my new purse a little tighter. Finally, I slid over a $100 bill, the wisp of a salesgirl gave me $10 back, and the purse was mine.

Then, a quandary: I now had two bags. Which do I carry? Should I play the sophisticated young working woman-self-supporting, nobody's fool-with the Kate Spade? Or should I stick with the shabby, faithful knapsack, the bag I know and love?

I stuffed the Spade inside my backpack and walked out into the chilly air.