Filling The Empty Suitcase

With under a week to go it was time to start tossing things together and commence that rhythmic dance of filling the empty suitcase. As I hauled the thing from the basement to the bedroom I realized something: I had never owned a suitcase before. Is this correct? Certainly in 29 years I have at least owned one yet I couldn’t drum up a memory of a single suitcase pushed into the back of a closet or hidden under a bed. This revelation started me wondering how I moved things back and forth before purchasing the monster case I was about the fill.

Living in Toronto, six hours away from the family, I traveled a lot via train. During those trips home clothes, cds and the occasional piece of reading material were carted about in a faux leather book bag. This bag would last a few years before eventually resembling a piece of Swiss cheese and was sent off to faux leather bag heaven (or hell depending on whether or not you believe the bag’s stories of cocaine laced nights in Vegas and the strange disappearance of two prostitutes and a blackjack dealer). Various other knapsacks and backpacks would come in and out of my travel life until I figured something larger would be needed for the Canadian Pilgrimage. I purchased what I’ve dubbed the Beastpack from a camping/army surplus store on Yonge Street. At the time it felt perfect. Here I had this large pack like you see in all the hiking adds and pamphlets. It didn’t matter that bag was as tall as I was or that there were straps on the thing that I still have no idea what to do with. I forked over my eighty bucks, filled it, tossed it under a bus and lugged it around Canada for a year cursing the damnable thing every step of the way. When it was lost on a Greyhound somewhere between Ottawa and Winnipeg I did not shed a tear for the sciatica inducing Beastpack. I could never figure out quite how to hold the thing with every angle being an odd one. It did not fit properly on my back and hung loose. Eventually the pain in my shoulders became so numbing it was no longer noticeable. In a pinch, though, it made a fine pillow and would serve as protection both acting as a shield and a mighty weapon to wield during bear attacks. Well, if there had been any bear attacks. Sigh. I once clobbered a hamster with it but I can’t consider this an attack because, in all fairness to the hamster, the thing was sleeping at the time. Had it awakened I assure you the little varmint would have gladly taken a chunk out of my nose. Anyway, after one trip the Beastpack was retired and rested on the top shelf of my closet, exacting it’s revenge for my disdain periodically by falling on my head each time I reached for a clean T-shirt.

Toronto’s Yonge Street was a fine place to shop for cheap, shitty merchandise. Crap of all colors, sizes and shape was displayed in front of stores that all worked the words CHEAP and LOW and PRICES into there outside advertising in big, bold eye catching fonts. By and large, the stuff you found in these places, usually run by friendly East Indians with terrible salesmanship (an actual conversation here folks: “You like this wallet, yes?” “Yeah, it’s alright.” “For you I sell only $10!” I glance at the cardboard sign halfassedly taped to the bin’o’wallets that reads $8, grin and mosey on out the door) was, indeed, cheap, poorly made crap. I knew this but was still always drawn inside, moth to the flame, as these stores gnashed and chewed at some inner part of me unable to resist them. I believe this tasteless portion of my genetic makeup also houses the answer to why, when flipping through television channels late at night, I will always pause spellbound by any infomercial despite how utterly useless the product is to me. Someone I start to become enthralled and elated by food dehydration. Yup, I just kept going into these shops and you’d think I would have learned my lesson with all the umbrellas I was suckered into buying. These marvels of human ineptness must have been made out of paper towels and pipe cleaners as they would rebel against the slightest breeze by turning themselves inward and acting more as a rain catcher that would fill up and dribble small rivers down my back. At least five of these cheap things committed suicide on me when I needed them most and were tossed angrily into various city garbage bins where they, no doubt, became sailboats for the homeless to race in the wee small hours. Still, the cheap bastard I am, I kept buying them thinking that surly this time luck would be on my side and my two dollar umbrella would stand the test of time. No dice.

Every once in awhile, though, you could find something that actually held together longer then four minutes, did not shrink to doll clothe sized portions when washed and did not smell of gym socks and curry. I still have a small knapsack I picked up at one of these places five years ago and I have ran the thing ragged to only have a buckle break recently (easily repaired for fifty cents). Although I can’t quite recall, I believe the shoes I adore so much were also purchased at such a discount dive. Yes there have been dozens of blank CDs that did not work, an alarm clock that wouldn’t ring and a radio that only seemed to pick up the soothing aberration that is Yanni but there has also been a camera that kept on clicking after tumbling into a lake, a coat that kept me dry in frigid ocean mist and pens with bottomless ink. When it came time to pick out a suitcase I entertained the notion of visiting Yonge Street once again. I was in Toronto at the time having just had my interview for the teaching gig in Japan and my confidence level was infectiously high. I had already snagged a used copy of the Lonely Planet Japan guide and figured I’d go one step further and get a suitcase. In the end, though, I decided to not press my luck as I still didn’t actually have the job and I managed to finally resist the pull of the Yonge Street discount stores.

Resist them, I did, and two months later wandered on into an Ottawa discount store instead. Another East Indian clerk smiled and approached but there was to be no trivial banter today. No bartering would be necessary. The suitcase, a mammoth on wheels, was perfect. For only $39 I happily snagged this baby and wheeled it down Bank Street, head held high. There is something liberating about having a suitcase carrying it with you down a busy street. People turn and look at you (mainly because you have knicked them with a suitcase) and think “Yeah, that guy is going somewhere”. Why else would you have a suitcase unless you were either going on a trip or trafficking drugs into Mexico? The case wheeled nicely, a smooth ride. I wondered if people would look down upon me if I totally tricked out my suitcase. I could get those purple neon lights and place them around the edge, add maybe some nice decals. For a month it sat in the corner of my apartment waiting to serve it’s purpose. Now, with six days remaining, it is packed and ready for the journey. It is time for the suitcase to wander.

The goal was to get this hefty bugger at or under the 50 pound baggage allowance. I would attempt to maintain the proper weight by shucking the case unto our bathroom scale at various packing intervals. Placing the empty suitcase itself on the scale did not bode well for me at the starting gate. The little digital display blinked 19. The suitcase alone was 19 pounds! Yikes! Still, this was just a test run and was not the be all, end all packing certainty. With that in mind, I tossed inside as much as I could in a helter-skelter arrangement. A zipper broke and the inside mesh nearly tore but, overall, the suitcase held nicely enough. What do you want for 39 bucks? I watched it slowly sink into the bed with each new addition and I began to wonder if the bed would collapse, maybe fall through the floor clear into the basement, crush my poor mother sitting at the computer and then journey into the center of the Earth where it would quickly advance and emerge pretty much unscathed in China. The mind wanders, doesn’t it? When I was satisfied on the contents I had packed I lugged the thing off the bed and wheeled it onto the scale. The bad news is that is weighed in at over the baggage allowance. The good news is that it was only one pound over. I will rearrange and shift contents on Sunday. One more task complete.