'That suitcase is not going to fit in that car', I thought to myself, as I waited for my ride outside the terminal. The woman who had arrived with it had been met by the man driving the car. She looked like she was his aunt or something. She got into the front seat and left him to deal with the bags which included a gargantuan suitcase. Jokes about how to get elephants into a car came to my mind. It was going to be interesting. I sat down on the bench and looked on with some excitement.
For the next five minutes, the man waged a keen and absorbing battle with the suitcases. I watched him rapidly try different combinations and sequences to load the bags into the trunk. Nothing seemed to work. It was like solving a jigsaw puzzle except that there was an extra piece which you could not leave out. The large case simply would not fit into the trunk whether straight in or sideways. Finally, in desperation, he pushed it into the backseat where it was a really tight squeeze. For a few tense seconds, it looked like it as going to get stuck midway, but miraculously, it slid in between the front and back seats. I was so intently watching the whole drama that when he closed the trunk and turned around he caught my eye and I had to do something. I gave him a thumbs up. Accepting it with good humour, he came over and gave me a fist bump. As he drove off, I was certain that he was going to have an even bigger challenge extricating that suitcase from the back seat.
Even though airlines have restrictions on the size, suitcases seem to have grown larger over the last several years. The wheels do make it easy to pull them along, but these suitcases are shaped in all sorts of odd ways making it difficult to load them into cars and unload. At the same time, cars are now trending smaller promising more and more scenes like the above.
At the airport, checking the bags is of course fairly easy. You just need to get them to the counter. But it is quite a task picking up a big suitcase from the baggage carousel at the destination. I often see people struggling to get hold of the handle which is always on the wrong side as the suitcase speeds along the belt. For some reason, perhaps as a cruel joke, the handlers load them on to the belt with the handles out of the reach of waiting passengers. I can almost picture a small framed passenger being pulled on to the belt while trying to get hold of a big suitcase.
It is not just loading and unloading that presents a challenge. Have you noticed how taxing it is to pack those huge molded suitcases that open like clam shells? First, you have to ask everyone else to leave the room before you can open one because it will occupy the better part of a room when opened all the way. Then, you have to pack the two sides separately. You walk back and forth across the room to get it filled. Once it is packed, you have to lift the heavy top side (or bottom as usually you cannot tell which is which) and close it over the other. In this process, some of the items always fall out. Some others will stick out just enough to prevent the sides from closing cleanly. Even if there is the slightest obstruction, the latch cannot be engaged. Sometimes, you have to sit on the suitcase to make it close. And if you have to reopen it to pack some more things, well, you get to perform this dance all over again.
My own preference is to travel as light as possible. So I select the smallest suitcase that can serve the needs of a trip. I also go with the soft bags. They are easier to lift, load and unload. It is also easy to pack a smaller bag really full so that the contents remain stable during the journey. They can be opened easily without requiring extra room. There is no confusion about which side is up. And, while I have no evidence to support this, I suspect that soft bags are handled less harshly by airlines staff since they don't look like tanks as the hard ones do. I could go on, but I guess it is ultimately a matter of personal choice. If you ask for my advice, pick a case you can pack without getting into a pickle.
For the next five minutes, the man waged a keen and absorbing battle with the suitcases. I watched him rapidly try different combinations and sequences to load the bags into the trunk. Nothing seemed to work. It was like solving a jigsaw puzzle except that there was an extra piece which you could not leave out. The large case simply would not fit into the trunk whether straight in or sideways. Finally, in desperation, he pushed it into the backseat where it was a really tight squeeze. For a few tense seconds, it looked like it as going to get stuck midway, but miraculously, it slid in between the front and back seats. I was so intently watching the whole drama that when he closed the trunk and turned around he caught my eye and I had to do something. I gave him a thumbs up. Accepting it with good humour, he came over and gave me a fist bump. As he drove off, I was certain that he was going to have an even bigger challenge extricating that suitcase from the back seat.
Even though airlines have restrictions on the size, suitcases seem to have grown larger over the last several years. The wheels do make it easy to pull them along, but these suitcases are shaped in all sorts of odd ways making it difficult to load them into cars and unload. At the same time, cars are now trending smaller promising more and more scenes like the above.
At the airport, checking the bags is of course fairly easy. You just need to get them to the counter. But it is quite a task picking up a big suitcase from the baggage carousel at the destination. I often see people struggling to get hold of the handle which is always on the wrong side as the suitcase speeds along the belt. For some reason, perhaps as a cruel joke, the handlers load them on to the belt with the handles out of the reach of waiting passengers. I can almost picture a small framed passenger being pulled on to the belt while trying to get hold of a big suitcase.
It is not just loading and unloading that presents a challenge. Have you noticed how taxing it is to pack those huge molded suitcases that open like clam shells? First, you have to ask everyone else to leave the room before you can open one because it will occupy the better part of a room when opened all the way. Then, you have to pack the two sides separately. You walk back and forth across the room to get it filled. Once it is packed, you have to lift the heavy top side (or bottom as usually you cannot tell which is which) and close it over the other. In this process, some of the items always fall out. Some others will stick out just enough to prevent the sides from closing cleanly. Even if there is the slightest obstruction, the latch cannot be engaged. Sometimes, you have to sit on the suitcase to make it close. And if you have to reopen it to pack some more things, well, you get to perform this dance all over again.
My own preference is to travel as light as possible. So I select the smallest suitcase that can serve the needs of a trip. I also go with the soft bags. They are easier to lift, load and unload. It is also easy to pack a smaller bag really full so that the contents remain stable during the journey. They can be opened easily without requiring extra room. There is no confusion about which side is up. And, while I have no evidence to support this, I suspect that soft bags are handled less harshly by airlines staff since they don't look like tanks as the hard ones do. I could go on, but I guess it is ultimately a matter of personal choice. If you ask for my advice, pick a case you can pack without getting into a pickle.
6 comments:
As usual, love every one of yours!
Neelakantan, If I am going to travel for a few weeks, I first do a " Mock packing". This is a ritual I do a week in advance - this lets me know the eventual size of my baggage and also highlights what I do not have and need to buy. During the week before travel, I keep reducing stuff and manage to send about 20% of things from the bag, back to my wardrobe. When you do last minute packing you tend to over pack - thinking, just in case..... At the destimation, if I am going to stay at a place for more than 2 nights, I completely unpack my suitcase - to avoid that wretched feeling of living out of a suitcase. T.N.Shankar
"pick a case you can pack without getting into a pickle" is possible, but "pick a case you can pack without pickle" is impossible, if you are travelling from India (Andhra, especially!) to any part of the world!!!
Why travel? Kant lived and died in Konigsberg without leaving town....On a more serious note, I once saw a woman trying to walk along the carousel edge trying to retrieve her baggage, unsuccessfully, and stumbling over waiting luggage trolleys.
I enjoy the 'PG'- not just the Palamadai Gene but also the 'PG' of Wodehouse reading these blogs. One thing that catches my eye every time after at Custom's clearance is that people struggle to close their cases (while the Custom's officer thinks there is a case of smuggling here!) because magically it has grown inside during the flight. Further, the real pickles packed poorly really leak! And after all the effort, the pickles have to be discarded while the dry cleaners give up even before trying and the suitcase is truly abandoned after its maiden flight!
Well written with good humor!
When I start packing for my return trip to Australia, I get so paranoid that my suitcase will exceed the allowed weight of 20 kg that I keep weighing it so many times before I finish packing!
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