As our regular readers will note, the wife hornswoggled me into a Caribbean cruise for vacation this year. Clever as she is at plotting a vacation, her mental talents apparently don’t extend into the realm of actually preparing for one.
I decided that instead of waiting until the last minute, we would pack as much as possible in advance of leaving for the airport and so save ourselves a large amount of stress. How naïve I must be.
She had finished packing one of her bags and I endeavored to move it downstairs into the staging area, but soon realized that I was going to need a pack mule just to move the darn thing. I called her upstairs and opened the bag, intending on doing a quick inventory and triage.
“Okay, what the devil are these doing in here?” I asked reasonably, holding aloft a pair of hiking boots.
“We are going to want to go on some excursions on the islands,” she replied. “I thought I might need them if we went into the outback.”
“Firstly,” I replied, “we’re going to the Caribbean, not Australia: there is no ‘outback.’ Secondly, all those islands are pretty much flat as a pancake. In fact, if a particularly brisk breeze blows up in the bay, all the natives get out a mop. Thirdly, they are all overdeveloped tourist traps, so the only thing taking a hike will be our credit rating.”
“Well, I suppose we can do without those, then. But you can’t ditch that, I need it,” she said when I pulled out a desk lamp.
“And why do you need this thing? Can’t you make do with a book light like everyone else?” I asked.
“Those things are too dim with their little wimpy bulbs. I need something stronger to read by or it hurts my eyes,” she replied.
“What’s going to hurt your eyes is trying to read all seventeen, ah make that eighteen of these books,” I said, dumping the lot of the goopy romance novels onto the floor, leaving a treacly stain on the carpet. “Pick out three or four, and leave the rest.”
“But I have to have something to read on the plane!” she protested.
“Fine,” I said, “Read the safety disclaimers on our ticket stubs – that should qualify as a thriller by Stephen King. Except it’s scarier. Now what about this?”
“That’s just the suncreen I’m taking. You know how fair my skin is,” she said.
“Okay, but do you really need an entire gallon of it?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, because I could only find up to SPF 40. I could use less if they made SPF 100, but I couldn’t find any.”
“You were looking in the wrong place,” I replied. “Go to Home Depot and check out the ‘spackle’ aisle. Now, why do you need four different swimsuits?”
“Because different colors go with different situations,” she answered. “This silver one goes with the light blue color of the shipboard pool, but the aqua one matches the water in the island bays and the red one goes better with the deep water when we’re out on the sailboat and-”
“Never mind,” I stopped her before the lecture could continue, “They weigh almost as little as they cover up anyway. What about this?” I asked. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Just the basic essentials for scuba diving,” she replied blithely. “You wouldn’t want me to use rented equipment, would you? I’ve checked this stuff out and I know it’s safe.”
“Okay, I can understand bringing your own dive watch and regulator, but aren’t air tanks pretty much universal? And extremely heavy? We can leave this behind, or the airline is going to want to levy freight charges.”
“If you insist, I suppose I can do without that,” she replied magnanimously. “Is that about it?”
“I think so,” I said, zipping the much lighter bag back up. “I didn’t notice that you packed much by way of regular clothes or toiletries and stuff, though.”
“Oh, all those things are in the other five bags,” she said brightly. “You should be able to lift those no problem. As long as you take them one at a time.”
Next vacation, I’m thinking of taking us one at a time.

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