You think you’re going on vacation, but you’re wrong, at least on the first day. It takes days for our traveling group (sis and mom) to get ready to go on vacation. It starts six months ahead of time with the airfare watch, Tripadvisor and Frommer sites, travel insurance, locating the passport, and then paying for the whole thing. When the date gets closer the work begins.
“Mom, the TSA only lets you have a quart Ziploc, not a gallon sized one.” She has improved in this area, her makeup and face stuff that she believes she absolutely must take on board is down to a one quart baggie. My job is to pack her bags and shut my mouth as much as I can. In her suitcase, which teeters on the weight limit of 51 pounds, she has large sizes of Scope, shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, perfume, face stuff, bath stuff, you get it. We argued about the Scope-I lost. Then I came across all the ‘track suits,’ her favorites. I threw out two old ones and packed one set. She handled me a pair of her new “Skinny Jeans” to put in.
“Mom, where’d you get these?” Seems my niece took her to buy some pants and she came out with those things. My mom is 80+, short and round in the middle. She tried them on and I had to stifle the laugh. She looked like Tweedle Dum.
“Those aren’t as flattering as your dark grey slacks,” I say.
“You said my track suits were old fashioned, so I bought skinny jeans!”
“Well I meant that they were old, like used.”
“Pues, too late, I kinda like them and there stretchie.”
I will take a photo of those skinny jeans.
Now sis is down from three bags, six pair of shoes, and a carry-on to one check-in and a carry-on. That is a significant improvement. She felt the pain of twice getting busted for overweight bags and decided the shoes weren’t worth it. I just spent twenty minutes walking her through on line check in, and this is from a woman who has traveled several times before, but she’s not a couple anymore and it’s a new ballgame.
And as for me, I will brag and say that packing is pretty easy because my motto is if it doesn’t fit in the bag I go without and I can buy whatever I forget at a drugstore. My problem is taking care of my household before I leave two older teens/one young adult in the house for twelve days.(Yes, I heard you say PARTY!).
I have to stock up on plenty of food or our trashcans will overflow with fast food wrappers. The animals (6) are pretty well taken care of by their respective owners, except for our dog. I don’t know why they forget to feed him sometimes, and he’s the hardest working pet we have.
So the bags are packed, blank journal in tote, snacks, socks, neck pillow, shawl, passport, tickets, and the car is gassed up. I bid you adios and although I did a couple of scheduled posts, to appear later, I doubt I’ll be able to get to an internet cafe to post about Prague, Vienna or Budapest. But you never know. Be well.
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