It's a curious business, packing a suitcase to go away. I've always been a fan of the speed-pack, doing it all whilst the taxi's honking it's horn outside, but whilst this saves you an evening spent dawdling from the wardrobe to the bed, and the open case laid out upon it, you invariably forget the things that come in useful on a foreign trip, like clothes and a passport.
So I spent this evening allowing myself to be all grown up and pack methodically. Or so I thought, until I tried to jam the case shut and realised I'd packed four suits but not a single bit of underwear. And so things had to come out again and certain bits needed to be sacrificed. It's amazing what you can fit in a suitcase if you try though, isn't it? You've got a stack of clothes nine times higher than the base of the case but still, by defying physics, you get the thing shut. It's a well known fact in Dr Who circles that The Tardis was actually a blue Samsonite suitcase with a blue light on the top.
There's always the fear that you've forgotten something though, just as there is the worry that you've brought far too much, coupled with the inkling that you don't have nearly enough. "I'm away for ten nights, so what's adequate for that? Ten shirts? That would mean one shirt a day without having the luxury to change for the evening and I'm going to be sweating like a wrong 'un in the sun. So is it ten evening shirts and, say, five other shirts and five T-shirts? That's twenty items alone... surely too much? No, it's logical. Take twenty. TWENTY?"
"Right, suits. I need a suit to travel in tomorrow, so that's one. Two tuxedos because I'm going to a convention and they'll look the part. So that's three. Oh, and that funny red shiny one I got as a joke, that will look great in Vegas, baby! So that's four. Shall I leave them in their protective suit bags? Yeah, better had.... Oh, that's my suitcase full. I might be able to fit a sock down the side there... So four suits and a sock, let's roll."
You see some people (on TV, not in my flat) weighing their bags on the bathroom scales before they go on a journey. I don't actually know what the kilo limit is, doesn't it change with every airline, and anyway I'm presuming that if I only have one bag it can't possibly be over my weight allocation because some people turn up with three. But then you pick it up for the first time, slip a disc in your back and think "By God's trousers! That must weight the same as a small car! They're never going to let me on with that."
It's different for domestic and international travel though, that's the problem. They'll let me take my case over to America as is it, but I remember trying to take it on a flight from Atlanta to Washington once and they said it was too heavy. What are you supposed to do? Leave half your stuff at the airport? This trip involves three internal flights and I can pessimistically see excess baggage charges costing more than the damn air tickets.
Then, as a bloke, you feel slightly ashamed that you've packed so many clothes when ideally you only need one tuxedo, a pair of socks and a snorkel, so then you have to justify all you've packed and you come to the conclusion that you do get through a lot of clothes in a couple of weeks, and anyway, if you knew how to pack you'd only have half a suitcase full.
Some people are amazing packers. And by 'some people' I mean women. Yes, women are people too, stop being sexist. They can reduce a pile of twenty T-shirts into a solid block, with a similar chemical make-up to coal, which is same size as a coffee mug. Ten pairs of shoes? Not a problem, just arrange them in this secret way and you'll see they now all fit into this tobacco tin.
I don't pack that way, I might get as far as folding, but then it's just placed in the case without any real strategy. Shoes go at the sides, I know that much. Same with wash bag. But there are no laws to my packing, Sweetheart. I'm a punk. Which is a shame because now I can't get the thing closed.
Of course I can! No matter how impossible it might seem to get a suitcase closed, there's always a way. Always. It might involve building a 45 storey tower block on top of your case to force the lid down, but down it will go, and once you've got that clip down, you're done. You've got a case as volatile as an atom bomb, such is the internal pressure and power being constrained, but you've got it shut.
It's like the traps they used in Ghostbusters. Massive ghost, pulled down into a tiny canister, entrance snapped shut, and you've got a little vibrating and bouncing box of anger, but you're good to go.
I'm pretty sure I've remembered the stuff I normally forget this time. Mobile Phone charger. Check. Those wall socket adapters. Check. Cufflinks. Check. Camera. Check. Memory card for camera because otherwise the thing's useless and you're not forgetting that again you complete imbecile. Check. I.D. for getting into American bars even though I look about forty and without risking taking my passport everywhere. Check.
But still that niggling feeling...
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »