It’ll Fit, Trust Me. It’ll Fit.

IT WON’T BE LONG NOW. My wife, the lovely and patience enhanced, Dawn, and I will be jetting off to Ireland just after Easter.

Deciding what to pack and how to get it to fit into our luggage is not as easy as one might think. My luggage situation presents a special packing problem. I can either pack a second pair of socks or my meds. I figure that if I don’t take my meds I probably won’t need more socks – or much of anything else.

On a daily basis I down a surprising amount of pharmaceuticals and supplements. The reason I swallow this stuff is, theoretically, to keep my blood pressure from getting higher than Denver on a three day weekend. At least that is what my doctors tell me. I prefer to tell friends that all the pills are to keep me from spontaneously bursting into flames.

This presents a problem when it comes to packing for travel. I am going to have to pack about two months worth of this stuff. It’s not the weight, but the bulk. In my carry-on I plan to pack meds, netbook, kindle, and a tangle of power cords. Unless I can figure out some imaginative packing I’m concerned that my carry-on will be the size of a Honda SUV. That will not fit in the overhead compartment – and I never put my meds into checked baggage. I need them more than anyone in any city where they may accidently end up.

Packing for this trip, outside of my meds, is really a piece of cake. We will be gone for seven weeks. I plant to pack, with things that I can use to mix and match, for no more than five days. Each of our destinations has a washer and dryer. We will be in each place for a minimum of one week. Ergo – there is no need to pack as if we were going on a seven week long safari.

Given the predictable climate in Ireland (chilly, rainy, damp) there is no need to pack for wildly varying temperatures. I grant you that there are palm trees growing along the southern coast of the island, but nobody goes to the beach in a Speedo or thong unless they have a death wish. The few surfers that you can see are all wearing wetsuits. There is a reason Ireland is so green – it’s all that rain. Personally, I think a lot of that green is mildew.

I’m looking forward to this trip. If you are somewhere for seven weeks you are not there as a tourist – you are living there. And one would be hard pressed to find a more welcoming, genial, and embracing land.

So, now – if I can just figure out how to cram everything into my carry-on and still keep it down to a weight and bulk that I can manage without having to rent a forklift. I’m relatively clever, a dash sneaky, and capable of taking advantage of all opportunities, so I’ll figure it out. After all, all I really have to do is pack in such a way that when somebody looks into my bag they will say, “It’s much bigger on the inside.”

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