“Well, are you packed yet?” my mother demands down the phone.
I am silent. I don’t know how to answer such an immaterial inquiry. It’s like she’s called up asking me if I’ve prepared my speech for the Oscars when a) she knows I hate the arts and b) have never acted outside my unconvincing performance as a teenager saying no to drugs in a school play.
My trip is four days away. Of course I’m not packed. This is akin to me calling her on her 60th birthday and asking what photo she’d like for her funeral booklet. Both seem needlessly premature and if I’m honest, borderline rude. It’s a stupid question for a woman who has known me literally my entire life.
No, my bag is not packed yet because it is not 40 minutes until we have to leave for our flight. That is the only window in which you will get a yes to that question. Sometimes, when I let my fastidious streak win, I may pack the night before, but only if it’s a 5am flight and I have to brave the check-in queue.
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I have hit unsubscribe to the panic people seem to associate with “packing” and “being packed”. “Have you started packing yet?” “How are you going to fit your shoes in?” “What are you going to take in the carry on?”
There is a fear that if you pack the wrong shoes or the wrong top to bottom ratio the entire trip will be ruined. This would make sense if you were hiking the Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea, a famously unforgiving single-file track in dense jungle, and not heading off to Torremolinos on a girls’ trip.
Then there’s the frantic dash around the shops for bits like those mini bottles you squeeze toiletries into. The kind that makes you waste half your good conditioner trying to pour it into the finicky little opening, and waste the other half trying to squeeze it out of the stubborn bottle when you arrive.
Conniptions over whether razors can be brought as carry on or not blend with worry that your toothpaste and sunscreen won’t fit in with your deodorant in the clear ziplock bag all on-board liquids must be confined to. Would you rather stink of body odour or have smelly breath?
“Make sure you pack enough socks and undies!” shouts my mum down the line because she still thinks WhatsApp works like two cups tied together with string and requires volume to make it function.
I have to remind her I’m going to Australia, home to many reputable undergarment sellers like Kmart and Target despite whatever Eurocentrist snobs might want you to believe. I’ll have them know we now have colour television in almost every home due to the mining boom.
In the same breath as warning me to pack enough underwear as if I’m planning to have diarrhoea for every day of my stay, my mum also reminds me, “Don’t pack too many clothes, you have clothes here you can wear.”
That’s right, clothes I left behind when I moved out over a decade ago. I won’t pack anything so, thanks Mum. I’m sure between the old bridesmaids dresses and my netball uniform I’ll be suitably attired for any occasion my visit might present me with.
Giving myself time to pack is counterproductive. I pack like I’m dressing an entirely different person. My holiday persona will finally wear all those Zara crop tops I’ve deemed too itchy for normal life. I pack colourful scarves as if I am Sophia Loren embarking on a tour of the Amalfi Coast when in reality I will be walking down to the Toongabbie service station in my dad’s old board shorts to buy a Cornetto.
Give me 30 minutes and I will pack the things that can’t be replaced easily and cheaply – medication, noise cancelling headphones, a spare T-shirt and tracksuit – into a carry on bag. That way I have a cosy outfit for the 24 hour flight and an extra set of clothes in case my big bag goes missing.
You might call it a product of my ADHD that requires the external motivation of time pressure to allow me to do tasks. I call it not giving in to performative organisation. What’s the point of packing your bag days earlier, other than to tell people that you’re all packed? All that rushing about just to sit in your livingroom with your bags packed hours before, slapping your thighs and going “well now!”
Being organised gets in the way of progress, it deprives us of our ability to devote ourselves to tasks that will actually improve our lives. Like working out how you can get an upgrade to Business using a complex scheme of point transfers.
They even give you pyjamas in there, problem solved.
