My Inexplicable Hatred for Packing
If I have one superpower, it’s my ability to get shit done.
This first manifested itself in the throes of childhood, in one of the torture prisons known as “Girl Scout camp” where you pack seven outfits but return home wearing the same underwear. All the chatty pre-pubescent girls would gather around the minivans, singing songs about mosquitoes and ill-named, ill-fated children we did not want to become (“she had ten hairs on her head. Five were alive and the other five were dead.”) The caravan would wind its way through the backwoods of Michigan to deposit 20 girls and 30 pounds of trail mix at a shady A-frame cabin filled with cardboard pallets parading as bunk bed mattresses. The troop leaders would dole out acetaminophen for the occasional rash but otherwise retreat to the adult cabin and leave us to fend for ourselves on latrine duty and kitchen cleanup. How anyone thought it was a good idea to let 7-year-olds handle bleach and “sanitize” dishes is beyond my adult comprehension.
That’s when I took charge.
I was not going to get salmonella poisoning. If Angie couldn’t handle the scalding water, I would assign another girl and banish her to the punishingly isolated task of kindling collection. I orchestrated campfire meals in a neat line, rotating each foil packet at the precise time to get equal access to smoldering coals. Did the other girls openly hate me? Sure. But did my group win every competition/costume contest/survival trial? With war-like pride. I planned on leaving this outdoor hellhole alive and in possession of multiple merit badges.
So, yeah, I took the bull by the proverbial horns at a young age. These days, I don’t bully people into washing dishes but I still manage to live pretty effectively. Tasks that normally take my husband a week to accomplish I knock out in a coffee-fueled morning (though that may be saying something more about him than about me). Sure, I succumb to lazy streaks like anyone else, and there was the Christmas break I averaged 7 hours of television per day, but generally, I can be counted on to 1) Identify the task. 2) Make a list. 3). Set a timeline. 4). Get it done. This makes me both a good (always on time, always with a bottle of wine, always sends a birthday card that arrives 2 days before the celebration) and annoying (makes you feel bad for being late, calls instead of texts, struggles through any beachy, no-real-plans “girl trip”) friend. A consistent runner. A predictable employee. An effective human.
But for the life of me and for the love of God, I cannot pack a suitcase.
I discovered this handicap in adulthood. I must have blacked out every time I packed a bag as a child because I have no recollection of physically moving things from a closet to a miniature wheely roller case. Honestly, I don’t even remember packing things in college. The only evidence is that I continued to wear clothes that previously lived in my parent’s 1950s ranch situated on the other side of the country.
It must have begun in my early career, a painfully eager baby fundraiser clacking around airports in high heels when I should have been wearing sneakers or at least ballet flats. The mantra “dress for the job you want” haunted my pencil-skirt-wearing-Chipotle-stuffing body from business meeting to business meeting. I had a peculiar feeling that these donors, who had no connection, would start to notice any repeated outfits and then find and call each other to gossip about my limited wardrobe.
“Bonnie, she wore the navy blazer and gray slacks for our meeting on Monday.”
“The blazer with the brass buttons?”
“The very same.”
“She wore that to our meeting on Wednesday!”
“That whore.”
Is this the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever read? Well, buckle up.
I went through your typical shopaholic phase, cycling through clothing like plastic water bottles before the world got all “conscious.” As my career escalated, the distance and geography lengthen. No longer did I spend two days in Tallahassee with a pit stop in Atlanta. I was circling the country, hitting LAX > PDX > IAH > TUL > ORD in a week. How does one pack for five climates in five days? How do you appropriately dress, even with an infinity closet, for snow in the morning and sunblock in the afternoon? I was both constantly sweating and constantly shivering, much to the chagrin of my airplane seatmates who surely thought I suffered from some tropical bowel disease.
Like hard drugs, I needed a break from the road life. I scaled back my wardrobe to a respectable seven blazers and, once America collectively decided they could now be pants, invested in thick leggings. In fact, I didn’t travel for six whole months.
My friends suggested a trip. I, enthusiastic and naive, felt excited to once again do the TSA tango. The night before my trip, I pulled down my trusty hardshell roller and replaced my travel toothbrush.
And then I totally panicked.
What’s the weather like in New York these days?
Fifty-seven on Friday but down to thirty-six by Sunday? Woah. Fleece zippy and a parka.
I’ll probably walk a lot so I need comfortable but stylish footwear. It is NYC, after all.
We’ll likely see a show. And dinner. What can I wear to a show and dinner? Can I change clothes in between?
What outfit says “museum!”?
What if I get hit by a taxi? Do I really want to die in this outfit? This underwear??
Do I need a hat? Should it be a weather hat? A fashion hat? Why would I take up space with a fashion hat?
30% chance of rain? Now I need a rain jacket, rain boots, an umbrella. Two umbrellas because Kate never packs appropriately and she’ll probably ask to borrow mine.
Tylenol, antacids, a couple of hand sanitizers just in case, sleeping pills? Does anyone snore?
What if my socks get damp. I can’t walk around in damp socks. I’ll get trench foot.
This purse is too casual for going out, but it is big enough for my umbrella. So I’ll need this bag, a clutch, a crossbody bag for site seeing, a miniature wallet, a regular wallet. My binoculars?
Two credit cards, bills in denominations of 5, 10, 20, ID, passport, three health insurance cards — including the expired one, just in case — and a stack of old subway tickets.
What if my phone dies? What if my laptop dies? What if my charger dies? I should bring triple backups of each.
What if I finish this book, and this book, and I can’t find another book, and people stop selling and buying books and I just have to stare outthe airplane window for forty minutes lost in my uncomfortable thoughts and ask for more sparkling water from the angry flight attendant?
Oh yes! That’s right. Jessica definitely snores. Better do earplugs, too.
This went on for hours until I had — no joke — a backpack, purse, duffel bag, laptop bag, and one 50-pound suitcase you take on your summer holiday to Spain. For a long weekend. Immediately embarrassed, I unpacked everything to start again, telling myself I needed to keep it simple and minimal. No one wants to be that diva that arrives sweating and lugging multiple pieces onto the inner-airport tram.
But I could not pare it down. All the incidentals, all the “what-ifs,” all the confusion about weather and moisture and airborne disease rendered me putty splayed around heaps of clothing at 2 a.m. the morning of the trip.
Reader, I cried.
I felt like I was broken, that I couldn’t function in adult society. That I no longer understand basic concepts like layering and monochromic color schemes. I would have paid someone much, much money to do it for me (but then again, I didn’t trust anyone! What if they packed a fashion hat over extra socks??) Three glasses of pinot later, I managed to stuff five outfits appropriate for five climates into a carry-on, but I was not proud.
I have not yet recovered. Every trip to visit my family, every car ride that lasts more than four hours, I agonize over what to pack. My husband watches me pace the bedroom floor, clawing at my eyes like I’m in agony. He calls me a nut. I kill him with my laser eyes.
I start strong with a reminder that Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day, or that most chic women stick to all black. But then I check the weather. And my mom reminds me of the baby shower we are attending on Sunday. My grandparent’s basement always feels like Antarctica on the night of the winter solstice. You can never trust Airbnbs to have quality shampoo.
Usually, I’m an efficient, effective human being.
BUT WHAT IF IT RAINS.
