Unpacking The Bag

I’ve been running around all day getting ready for tomorrow’s drive to Cleveland: going to the bank (for toll money) the grocery store (for diet Pepsi and snacks), the library (to return a couple items and pick up a couple more), doing (and repairing) laundry, gathering up the truly impressive number of charging cords I think I need (I really do, though), learning Watson’s GPS (loaned so I won’t run off the road reading the directions and will instead veer off a bridge listening to them), making many piles of the things I’m taking (from the many lists I made yesterday), and trying to fit them all in two or three pieces of luggage.*

One of these pieces is my purse. Or, as my family calls it, The Bag:

The Bag is one foot by two feet, has eight pockets, and can easily fit a family of four, or at least several not-so metaphorical tons of their stuff.  In order to prep for this trip, I decided to clean out The Bag and then restock it with only the things I need for the trip.

But first, Watson made me weigh it:**  Seven pounds even.

I was impressed—it seemed heavier than that.

The content  varies from day to day, but this is what I’ve been schlepping around with me since the last time the contents of The Bag were allowed to settle:

Keys
Library ID
Phone
Aquaphor hand ointment
Hand sanitizer
One Barbie purse
One mint box containing a lucky rock
Five pads of a feminine nature
Four pencils, three with broken points
Five pens, including a 2″ one with pink ink and one green Sharpie
One beaded bracelet
An excellent book
One planner
One scribble book with “Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake” on the cover
One small graph-paper memo book
One CPR Face Shield
Six laminated double-sided knitting needles
A powder compact
A quarter-inch stack of 3×5″ cards
My wallet (contents also various)
Three dollars and eight-one cents (two bills and change)
Twenty-three crumpled receipts
The guarantee for Rocinante’s new windshield
One Splenda packet,
The plastic ball from a gumball machine toy
The butterfly zipper pull from Sunny’s jacket
A half-inch-worth of my business cards
One tablespoon of loose fortune cookie crumbs

I sorted out all the stuff, sharpened and capped the pencils, pitched the trash, gave back the things that weren’t mine, repacked the bag with only the essentials, and weighed it again.

Five pounds, six and three-fourths ounces.  That’s not so bad—and now there’s room in there for my three-pound Netbook, which was the ostensible point of this exercise.***

All that’s left to do before I head out at six o’clock tomorrow is . . . yeah, I’d better hit publish and get going.

See you on the Ohio side!

What’s in your pocketses?

_______________________________

*And then unpacking them, because I promised Sunny she could help when she came home from school.

*She also thought I should take that first image of it, before I emptied it out.   This would have been easy, if it weren’t for a certain furry-bottomed photobomber showing off his best side every single time I focused the frame.

***And also a blog post, I won’t lie.

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