Packing #SOLC26 22/31

As I packed my bag yesterday, I followed my personal rituals, tailored to this particular carry-on: stashed socks in various corners, used t-shirts to fill the gap between the bottom bars, placed my toiletries bag on top of the clothes on the wheel end of the bag, made sure that underwear were not the top layer, in case the bag got searched, splayed open in front of passengers everywhere. When I realized I was reveling in my lack of actual shoes – sandals only for this trip! – and thus lack of decisions about stuffing socks in them, I remembered a long-ago argument with my sister. 

We were in college, and I thought I was quite cosmopolitan. I went to school in a big city (Washington, DC); she went to school in a college town. I had studied abroad and had a French boyfriend; she had not. I was a traveler, and as far as I was concerned, she was not. I was proud of my ability to travel just about anywhere with only a carry-on – something that I don’t think was particularly common at the time (cast yourself back to before 9/11, before fees for baggage – hard to imagine now). I had recently seen a magazine article about rolling up your clothes in order to cram more into your bag, and I was opining about how much I loved this new method of packing, about just how much I could get into a tiny space. My technique was flawless.

Enter my sister. She had no time for my airs and mercilessly mocked my amazing new packing discovery. I remember her sitting on her bed, telling me how stupid it was and how much time I was wasting by rolling all those clothes. I tried to explain how this created more space; she said I might as well just toss everything in because it would be the same. I disagreed, she mocked, and we continued our back and forth until we fought. 

We were loud enough that my mother came in. She was used to our fights, often worse just before one of us left the other, so she didn’t even bother to point out the absurdity of fighting over how to pack a suitcase. Instead, she tried to mediate, but we were having none of it. Finally, exasperated, she came up with a plan: we would both pack the bag. First, I would pack my way; then my sister would pack her way. Most clothes in would win.

The game was on. Drawers were emptied. I folded, rolled and thrust clothes into the carry-on until it was bursting with clothes. I added more in the middle, less on the sides, and was just barely able to zip it closed. Triumph. Then, we cleared any unpacked clothes off the bed, opened the suitcase and dumped it out. My sister took her turn. She shook everything out until she had a giant heap of clothing. Then, she picked up the entire pile and threw it into the bag. She smashed it down, shoved a few bits into place, sat on the suitcase and smugly zipped it closed. 

My mother declared that both methods allowed for an equal amount of clothing in the carry-on. I was furious; my sister, exultant. My mother looked at her two oldest children, both of us students at prestigious institutions of higher learning, and did not say that we were petty and shallow and utterly ridiculous; instead, she simply said, “Kim’s method is faster, but Mandy’s means the clothes aren’t wrinkled and unwearable.” Then she left.

I don’t remember what happened next. I know I was a clothes-roller for a little while longer, but I reverted back to regular folding pretty quickly; I want to believe that my sister never simply dumped a drawerful of clothing into a suitcase and left, but she might have. These days, she folds her clothes, too. Such a silly, silly fight – and I have no idea why I remember it – but I think of it often as I pack: folding, smoothing, and, yes, rolling some things up to fit in one space while I shove other things in into another, willy-nilly wherever they’ll go.