It has come to my attention that a grown person shouldn't be carrying a backpack every morning to his office at a downtown skyscraper. Backpacks, I am told, are for kids and mountain climbers, and college students who want people to think they're still kids or have just climbed a mountain.

I'll admit that my backpack doesn't exactly connote maturity. Things that involve mesh rarely do. Maybe having a backpack is how my pre-midlife crisis is expressing itself. Some men splurge on sports cars or have affairs with women half their age; I got an Eastpak.

I actually never was a backpack child. No, I brought my belongings to school in a duffel bag that screamed to classmates: "Loser approaching!" And as my textbooks grew in weight and number, I simply got bigger and bigger duffel bags. Why go back to your locker between classes when you could easily fit everything you owned into the Official Duffel Bag of the Boston Bruins Goalie?

Besides, take it from me, there is nothing more attractive to the average seventh-grade girl than a seventh-grade boy in an irregular Ralph Lauren shirt (with the-little-polo-player emblem stitched onto the sleeve or something) dragging down the hallway a duffel bag bigger than himself and from which is emanating the aroma of a bologna sandwich.

So, at the very least, I'm not duffeling it to work these days. But if my backpack is unacceptable, I still need some kind of carrying case to lug to and from work each day the 10 pounds of books and magazines I never look at.

Thinking about what to replace my backpack with, I realized that this might be the one area of fashion where women have it easier than men. Women simply buy some kind of purse or, if they're an alterna-chick who's regressing, a Hello Kitty lunchbox.

Look, I'm sure a woman choosing the right purse to fit her personality has its challenges, but at least she knows what she needs — and has thousands of options. What are a man's options?

A trendy leather "messenger" bag? You know, the large man-purses that are usually sold for prices that no actual messenger could afford.

I did at one point receive a cheapie messenger bag as a gift. But instead of feeling like a proper adult, I felt even more like a child — specifically an unloved English lad named Clayton sent off to boarding school. Then, I spilled yogurt in the messenger bag, and, well, nothing survives a yogurt spill. That's actually why CBS cancelled "Joan of Arcadia;" somebody spilled yogurt on the set.

Then there is the briefcase — the carrying case of choice for both society's upper echelon and the completely insane. Briefcases fall into three categories:

At the bottom rung, there are those hard plastic, always completely scuffed-up cases that would make the Dalai Lama look emotionally unstable if he carried one. Especially in conjunction with the robe. Not a good look.

In the middle are the standard leather cases with the little combination lock in case you have a really valuable lunch inside. Those are fine, I guess, but they're really only appropriate for people who often find themselves in the position of dramatically plopping their case down on a desk and saying, "I have the files right here."

And at the top rung are the heavy-duty aluminum cases, perfect for door-to-door plutonium salesmen but no one else.

But after messenger bags and briefcases, men aren't left with much. And don't say fanny-packs. Oh, please, don't say fanny-packs. Besides, even if fanny-packs did look acceptable, they're not big enough. I suppose I could forget about my appearance and start strapping several fanny-packs around my waist. But, heck, if looks don't matter, I could just go back to the backpack.

Right now, if the backpack must go, I'm considering bringing a suitcase to work every day. I already own one; it's big enough that people would give me a seat on the train; my fellow commuters would assume I've become a sophisticated, world-traveling businessman; and, best of all, it's on wheels.

Oh, if only I had used a suitcase in junior high instead of the goalie duffel bag! "Hey, girls, move that textbook out of the way and hop into my suitcase — I'll cart you over to social studies class."

(Mark Bazer can be reached at mebazer@yahoo.com.)

(c) 2006 mark bazer, Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.