I am getting ready to take off for an extended vacation in the next week or so, and therefore it has become my painful duty to do the one thing I hate the most in the world…plan ahead.
I have never in my life gone on one single trip where I was not encumbered by the necessity of either doing without whatever I forgot, or running out to frantically try to replace it. The number of drugstores in strange cities where I have been seen, running down the aisles, searching frantically for pantyhose, a headache remedy or some sort of makeshift gift would be a staggering figure.
This last weekend may illustrate my problems with remembering. We were on a trip to the Twin Cities, but we were going to an unfamiliar area. We had all kinds of maps and instructions, but we decided we should take the GPS anyway. Roy gathered the chargers, the stand, etc. and put them in the car. Halfway to Minneapolis, he turned to me and said, “Did you pack the GPS in the trunk?”
“GPS?” was my vague response.
We made it where we were going, but it was touchy. It’s the same every time. It’s not because we are more than ordinarily forgetful; no, our problem is much more elementary: I do everything last minute, including packing. It doesn’t matter how much warning I’ve had, I still wait until the very last minute and then I try to remember everything.
Sometimes I make a list in advance. This is extremely helpful. I make the list, promptly lose it and so my last-minute packing leaves something out. This has resulted in my wearing sneakers to a wedding, using my fingers to comb my hair and always and inevitably forgetting my deodorant!
The upcoming vacation (and it’s coming fast) will include several days of camping before an air trip to New York and some Broadway plays. That means I must remember camping equipment, food, and dress clothes…all in the same trip. I just hope I don’t show up at a Broadway theater in my walking sweat-suit!
I have a daughter who likes to be meticulously organized. I maintain that someone switched her at birth because she cannot be mine. She makes lists (and hangs on to them), plans her events down to the last detail and is always months ahead of time in her arrangements. I wish I was like that, but I am not.
So, on the last day before I leave for vacation I will be frantically throwing fry pans, eggs and bacon, dress theater jackets and my favorite ratty old pajamas in the suitcase and it won’t be until I’m well on the road that I will remember that I should have brought the coffee and that I don’t know if my dress shoes are in the suitcase or not!My husband has been asking me not-so-subtle questions all week like, “Do you have all the laundry done that you need?” (I have been known to throw dirty clothes in the suitcase and rinse them out in a motel sink). Or, “Say, dear, have you brought up the suitcases yet? You know, so we can get started packing?” (That’s so silly, because frequently I will not have unpacked from a previous trip, so when I get the suitcase, I find not so fresh clothes in it or discover that THIS is where my spare toothbrush went.)
I’ll get around to packing for this trip, but I know without a doubt that my husband is going to turn to me when we are in the car, much too late to turn around and go back, and say, “Oh, by the way, did you pack…oh, never mind, we’ll have to get along without it!” Happy vacationing, everyone!
dropsinthewell 