My Baggage

I've done a lot of travelling.  And if there's one thing I'm pretty good at, it's packing a suitcase.  If there's one thing I'm terrible at, it's pretty much everything else.  I'm not good at timing a vacation, making the correct travel arrangements or having the right visa when I get there, among other things.  So, let's just focus on the luggage then, shall we?

I rarely take my massive orange suitcase anywhere anymore because it's just too big. Not to mention, the broken zippers and torn handles from being manhandled all over the world.  These days, I've replaced my cumbersome luggage with a brick colored backpack that's smaller and more portable.

But, every once in a while there's an opportunity to break out my old school rolly bag.  Like last month when we moved into a hotel for a couple weeks while my wood floors were being refinished after a toilet overflowed.  I didn't need anything easily maneuverable, because it was only going into my car and then driving it 3 miles down the street to the Staybridge Suites.

However, it was still too much suitcase for me as I travel light these days.  Mostly because these days I'll wear the same clothes for a couple of days.  This is the advantage of working from home.  No one knows I picked yesterday's outfit up off of the floor to re-wear it the next day.  So, no one cares.  Especially me.  This also works on vacation.  Because are you going to see anyone you know on vacation?  Ok, so I just ran into someone I knew at the Grand Canyon last week.  So, it happens, but she didn't know I was on day 2 or 3 in those clothes because I didn't wash clothes on the trip.  Unless she saw the food stains on my shirt.  But, they could've been fresh stains.  How would she know?

Anyway, back to my baggage in the hotel room where I washed clothes all the time because they had a free washer and dryer at the hotel.  And because I have 4 teenagers who are clothes whores.  

To solve the too-much-suitcase-dilemma, I decided to share it with my husband.  Which we have done many times before in our earlier, more bumbling travels.  So we know to share it exactly 50-50, just like our marriage.  Maybe 60-40.  Or 70-30.  Whatever.  It depends on the day or the year, really.  Either way, when we're packing up to leave, there are no suitcase squabbles.  Even when we get wherever we're going, there's no issue.  My husband prefers to take his clothes out of the luggage and put them in a dresser or on a shelf, depending on the space.  While I prefer to commit to the suitcase and sprawl out onto his side of the luggage.  It's like getting the whole bed to myself.

Packing back up to go home is when the argument starts.  The same recurrent argument we have every time we share a bag: fold or cram?  My stance is, everything is dirty and going into the laundry when we get home anyway so why bother folding?  And his take is that folding makes things fit into the bag better.  Even though I am a master crammer and I can get everything in that bag and still close the zipper and he's totally wrong.  Maybe the caveat is "better".  And better is always subjective.  To me the least work is better.  To him, not ruining the suitcase by breaking the zipper from cramming everything into the suitcase is better.

Six of one, half dozen of the other,  I suppose.

Even though I'm totally right.  

This is my baggage.