Excess Baggage

I think a psychiatrist would have a hay day with me, just talking about my excess baggage.  I don’t mean the mental kind, although my husband assures me there’s plenty of that – I mean the kind of baggage we lug around in our travels.

The way I look at it, when I buy a ticket to Europe and it allows for two fifty pound bags, a twenty pound carry on and a small hand item, then that’s what I bring, because it’s all included in the price of the ticket.  Most Europeans I know can come to America for three weeks with just one small carry-on piece and not check in any luggage at all.  Do they bring a change their underwear, I wonder?

My husband is forever rolling his eyes when I start packing our bags.  I make sure we get our money’s worth, even if it is more luggage to manage than I have hands to carry.  I like to buy gifts in foreign lands, and I like bringing home foods I can’t get in America.  I really like bargains, so if something is a good price, just one will not do.

One year we were in Norway and the exchange rate was good and the sweaters were cheap.  I found brand new, unflawed, wool Norwegian sweaters at an outlet store that year for eleven dollars.  I bought 27 of them.  My luggage was bulging at the seams and even split wide open by the time the plane landed in Seattle, but all be darned if all my friends didn’t get wool sweaters that year for Christmas.  I’m sure they thought I’d won the lottery, as it seemed to them like quite the splurge.  I never let on about the bargain I’d gotten.

Another year wool Norwegian ski hats were on clearance for seven dollars.  I’d seen the same ones at REI for over forty bucks so I knew I couldn’t just buy one.  I bought 40.  They came in handy that year because it was the same year we bought a small bathroom sink and faucet in Norway and we used the hats for packing material.  The sink made it home just fine and provides a good line when my husband wants to chide me for all the things I fit into my luggage.

Last year we had one extra bag of snacks along with us and the flight attendant stopped us short as we were boarding and told us we had way too much carry on luggage.  I told her I could easily put those snacks in my backpack, and she made me prove I could.  As I stooped over shoving things in every nook and cranny in an already overstuffed backpack, she didn’t know I could I clearly understand every word she said in Norwegian to her co-worker.  “These Americans!”  she said, “They always travel with too much luggage.” I was so relieved.  I thought it was just me.