Having never flown before 1991, I found myself in charge of packing my clothes along with my husbands for a trip to Hawaii for 10 days.  Good thing this was back in the day that you didn’t have to pay to check luggage.  Anyway, someone (one of my dads friends who traveled alot) told me the best way to handle packing…..

You see, you iron the clothes really good, starch the heck out of them (not now, now I iron at the hotel but at that time, no iron in the hotel that I remember hearing about).  Then, you get as many plastic bags as you can find and you cut them into single sheets (think Wal-mart bags cut open and laid out flat).  Then, you lay the plastic on the clothes and you roll the highly starched clothes into rolls and you put them in your luggage.  You pack the suitcase as tight as you can so the stuff doesn’t shift around.

I used all my OCD skills and my mad pre-flight packing instructions and I went to work.  And, it worked.  When we arrived in Hawaii our clothes were still crisp and straight and all well to just throw them on and go.

But…you knew there was a but didn’t you?  Otherwise  I wouldn’t be writing this…

So, but…..when we would wear the clothes, we would just toss them in a corner.  And, when we started trying to pack 10 days worth of dirty clothes that were just crumpled up and half-ass folded…..we ran into a small problem…..

You see…I was so efficient, what with my starching and rolling that I had managed to put way more items in the very few pieces of luggage and now…….now they wouldn’t go back.  Hence, a new piece of luggage was purchased and not to bring back a pineapple or a bunch of souvenirs but just to bring back the clothes that had previously fit in said luggage. 

And, with that I am reminded that the lesson I learned in turn taught me another lesson about traveling.  A year later I was headed to the Bahamas with a friend.  We were hitting Ft. Lauderdale, the Bahamas, back to Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando, Daytona Beach and back to Orlando to fly home.

But having learned my lesson about packing, I had several pieces of luggage.  And my friend had several pieces of luggage.  And that was fine when we got to the airport, checked our baggage at the curb and went on about our business.  But, when we had to collect our baggage in Ft. Lauderdale, ride a shuttle bus to the car rental place and go inside?  Well, we had more luggage than two people could carry.  We had one suitcase that neither of us could even lift. 

We had bags on bags on bags and more bags.  But, you know those folks want a tip and they help.  Fast forward to getting off the cruise ship in the Bahamas and going through customs and catching a ride to our hotel there?  Er….well, we had more items than we could carry.  It was more than a bit hysterical and do you know, not one person offered to help us.  And, hey, we were 2 hot 23 year old chicks in short shorts and no one helped us. 

I try to think how in the world we actually managed but I don’t really know.  I just know that all that moving around,

on plane in Birmingham,

off in Ft. Lauderdale,

shuttle to rental car,

to hotel and unload the car,

re-load car the next day,

return car,

load shuttle to Cruise Ship,

unload at Port

load Shuttle to hotel,

unload bags,

reload bags,

go back through customs,

unload from the boat,

load the shuttle to rental car,

unload at hotel,

re-load car,

drive to Orlando,

unload car,

re-load car,

drive to Daytona Beach,

unload car,

re-load car,

unload at  car rental place,

load onto the shuttle,

unload at the airport in Orlando,

fly home and retrieve luggage again…….

So, trust me, I am a champion packer…actually I might be the dumbest traveler on Earth….so when you see me at Blogher…we’ll discuss how well I manage…but if I am crying…don’t ask.