Where Is The Nearest Walmart? I Forgot To Pack Underwear

We’re going out of town and I just finished packing a whole two days before we’re leaving, like some kind of organized person who has their shit together.

Meanwhile, Bill has been organizing our bin of charging cords and watching an extraordinarily large amount of basketball. He will throw clothes in his suitcase two hours before we leave and then unpack them three months after we get home.

For me, it’s not so easy. I’ll wear the same sweat-soaked, food-stained tee shirt for multiple days, and I don’t aspire to much fashion-wise. Really, the best I can hope for is some crossover between “cute” and “comfortable” while mixing and matching the same five black clothing items.

But all that goes out the window when I’m packing. How many outfits will I wear on a five-day vacation? Hmmmm…each day will demand a casual, formal, and In Case Of Spillage ensemble, a large size nothing-else-fits-tentish dress, and something extra tops and bottoms in case of a Fashion Emergency. I will also need at least three books for the two-hour car ride, and because I will arise at 6 a.m. to lift weights on the cruise ship (in theory), I must bring my own equipment.

I must also account for variables - normally comfortable clothes that suddenly becomes uncomfortable from too much eating, won’t unwrinkle or just look like shit on my body even though they looked presentable when tried on at home.

25 outfits for a five-day trip seems about right, right? Okay then, time to test the boundaries of my suitcase Tetris skills. (I’m kidding about bringing a weight set on vacation, by the way.)

Gosh, I hate packing. Like everything else, the older you get, the harder it becomes. In my 20s, back when dinosaurs roamed the land and the earth’s crust was still cooling, I threw a toothbrush, a bikini, a couple of T-shirts, and jean shorts in a suitcase. Now it’s an electric toothbrush, special sensitive gum toothpaste, a skirted bathing suit, a swim suit cover that adequately disguises my ass, three face creams, 17 hair products, a blowdrier, a flatiron, two different sized curling irons, Spanx, sensible shoes, shorts in four different sizes depending on how bloated I may become and welcome to your 50s where you must pack your entire medicine cabinet in your carry on bag.

My favorite part of packing is finding all the things around my house that I haven’t worn or touched in YEARS but suddenly feel the need to take on vacation. Travel chopsticks and metal straws? Yes please! Glowsticks? You never know when you might need them! Purple eyeliner? Of course! 

On one hand, I don’t want to endorse the habit of overpacking, but on the other, you never know when you might NEED purple eyeliner on a Disney cruise. There is also more comfort in overpacking (and having enough shirts to clothe the entire Game of Thrones cast for a month) than underpacking (Where’s my other sandal?)

Either way, I’ll spend the first 30 minutes after we pull out of the driveway mentally cataloging everything I packed, and we will inevitably either turn around and drive home to fetch something I haven't remembered (like prescription heartburn medicine) or stop at the nearest Walmart (to buy underwear…)

It happens every time. Gah!!

Bon Voyage!