$240 tube of toothpaste

I pride myself on being a relatively good packer!  Having spent 20 years travelling backwards and forwards to the U.S. with a single suitcase, (and never broken or lost anything) and 10 years before that cramming a school trunk with our 250 pieces of uniform, 1 eiderdown, 1 travelling blanket, and a teddy bear each term, I am, though I say myself, “a dab hand at it”. I even pride myself for revolutionizing the luggage industry; when on one of those lonely trips back to school, I carefully strapped, with string and belts my little suitcase to my mothers wheels of her dismantled shopping trolley. So the wheeled suitcase was born! Or was it the bungee cord?  Go check, I’m sure if you ask some senior executive at Samsonite, he will tell you that he was on that same rattling train going from Guildford to Portsmouth Harbour, in 1971 or he was even on the very same ferry ride over to the Isle of Wight, when he saw a skinny little kid dressed in cornflower blue overcoat, straw boater, and shoes as high as the 1” max limit as she could get away with, pulling behind her a suitcase on wheels with a hamster cage strapped precariously to top of it, and said to himself, “That child is going places – I bet she’ll be an air hostess one day!”

Still the idea of packing for 4 for 4 months was a daunting one. However armed with the knowledge of 2 checked pieces per person, the weight limit of 50lbs per piece and one carry on each, seemed somewhat generous, I (almost) enjoyed the process. Only packing the clothes I liked, leaving behind the things that usually haunt me at the back of the closet  - 4 months guilt free! We even packed extra items such as toothpaste and shampoo – we had them, we wouldn’t have to buy them at those expensive British prices – what the heck – throw it in!

The only variable in fact was: Would what I wanted to go into the cases actually fit? The answer never being revealed until the morning of the flight, as anyone who travels would know and gauging by the increasing pile of unpacked items on the dinning room table and the decreasing empty space in each of the 8 suitcases, it was going to be close. Well it did, by about midday actually, and as we weren’t flying until 10pm that night, - time for a cuppa.

We got to Dulles too in good time, able to relax in an empty airport, joke around with the kids and admire my handiwork (the suitcases – not the children).

The Big Bang Theory.

Squeals rang out through the airport – from me (turns out I’m pretty good at those too), as the knife went in “Only one piece of free checked luggage per person” said the very nice lady from BA and as she turned the knife “Oh yes I can see how misleading the web page is - but rules are rules!” smiles!....  “That will be $60 per extra bag.”

Half an hour later, tucking into sushi in our beautifully deserted airport, John and I contemplated our $240 tube of toothpaste. And I, while finally being able to see ‘Julie and Julia’ in relative comfort on the plane, I jolted with the realization we’d be paying another 240 dollars for a half empty tube of toothpaste on the way back.

posted by Sara