The Amazing Suitcase

Last night Steve and I were talking about which suitcases to take with us Ireland. I am a devotee of the carry-on bag. It doesn't matter how long the trip is, I only take my carry-on suitcase. Checked baggage seems to get lost and I hate waiting for bags when my flight lands. More importantly, I don't like to have to ask for help with my suitcases. Too many bags makes shuffling through the airport difficult.

Steve asked if I could really squeeze two weeks worth of clothing into a tiny bag. Everyone who went on the Scotland trip is laughing and laughing. That trip was longer than two weeks and I squeezed everything into my carry-on. My companions joked that the bag had some sort of compression function, because it seemed an endless amount of items could come out of that bag.

With all that stuff meticulously compacted into that bag, it was ridiculously heavy. I'm very strong and I would have had a hard time heaving it into the overhead bin. Luckily, on every leg of the journey some poor, sweet man would generously offer to lift it for me.

The conversation always went like this:

Sweet Man: Let me put that in the overhead bin for you.

Me: Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that. It's so heavy.
Sweet Man: Puffs Chest w/ Machismo Oh, then you should definitely let me do that for you.
Me: Taking a seat and getting comfortable Gee thanks, I appreciate it.

Then the poor, sweet man would practically give himself a hernia trying to heave that thing into the bin. This was always to snickering amusement of my traveling companions. And I was truly thankful. I could have lifted it, but I was grateful that I didn't have to do so.