Get Packing

What do you bring on a trip? And how long does it take you to pack?

I pride myself on traveling pretty light, for a girl anyway. One week in Syracuse with my parents means I'm bringing one small-to-medium wheeled suitcase and my backpack. My backpack has purse-y things and my iBook in it; the suitcase will have a few pairs of jeans, a couple of skirts, a few tops, the requisite unmentionables, and a toothbrush and eyeball supplies and cosmetics, my camera, my dad's birthday gift, and such.

Come to think of it, my backpack still holds a little sample baggie of flavored lubricants that was tossed to me at the Gay Pride parade a few months ago. I suppose I might not want to bring that. Then again, they ARE all still in the Ziploc baggie that they were distributed in, so it'd make it through security. Perhaps it might brighten their day a little! Only I wouldn't, because that's sort of the girl equivalent of being known to carry a bottle of Viagra, and I don't want anybody thinking I need that, because I don't, thankyouverymuch.

Once my stepfather gave my sister Margie a mortar shell he'd acquired through work at some point. It was, of course, hollow; but she had to leave it behind. You can't exactly carry a 5-foot-tall, olive drab, oblong metal bomb-shaped thing on the plane. Or at least that's what she assumed. I'm sorry to report she didn't actually try. I, being of a somewhat more practical bent, am giving my dad a book.

For tonight, it's laundry and white wine. Tomorrow I fly!