672 Packing At The Last Minute

672 Packing At The Last Minute

Maybe this should be called "Packing At The Last Minute, Two Months in Advance."

You never can be too prepared for a long trip, right?

Go out, buy suitcases. Three of them. Matched. Bargain priced but sturdy and a "name brand, and all three the same color." Bring them home, put them in the bedrooms, open them up and start loading them. It's only early March, but early May will be here sooner than you think.

Load them up is a euphemism. It's really "load them up and take stuff out." The Taiwanese "contingent," one woman, lived there for a good chunk of her life, and she's asking questions of a guy who never has been there?

"What's the weather in Taiwan like in May?" "Hot. Taiwan is the tropics. It's almost always hot."

"But we need Spring clothes when we leave America, right?" "Why? "Just shiver a little before we leave. When we get back in June it'll be hot in America, too."

We're going to see friends and relatives and children, do they care about what we're wearing?

Then: "Why do they charge us extra to bring along luggage." Who knows. Ask United Airlines. You're going to feel like they're family after the flight from central Pennsylvania to Washington to Tokyo to Taipei."

And "can I bring along my makeup and my cleanser stuff and my toothpaste and my contact lens cleaning solution?"

Yes. Just pack it in something other than a carry on.

"What about electricity?" Taiwan runs on 110 volts, just like here. But the shape of the plug is different. Plug conversion units are 59 cents each at Radio Shack.

"But what about the hair dryer?"

"Buy a hair dryer in Taipei and give it to your uncles when we leave."

"My uncles have no hair."

"Give it to your brother."

The world is going to hell and the worry is about what to do with a $10.00 hair dryer?

Then: "Where can we wash our clothing?" Taipei not only has laundromats, they have the world's largest laundromat. More washers and dryers than you can see on the floor of Sears or P.C. Richard or the Whirlpool shipping department.

What eventually will happen is that all this packing and unpacking and deciding and picking things and putting things back in the bureau or the closet will go on until the night before departure, and it really WILL be "Packing At The Last Minute."

Shrapnel:

--Computers can read your mind. And they are subversive. When you're in a hurry, they slow to a crawl but when you don't need them, every page and every program pops up instantaneously.

--We are their prisoners. But, then, they also are OUR prisoners. We can toss 'em in an eyeblink and it's amazing there aren't more of these machines affected by the Uzi Syndrome, which is when the owner finally "has it" and puts the thing out of its misery.

--American Idol is a sausage factory. The take in a slew of singing star wannabes, all of them with their own styles. And then they force them into a sausage casing that makes them all look and sound alike -- and from this, they pick the best?

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010