Her: do you have room in your suitcase for a couple of small items?
Me: How small?
Her: oh you know, a couple of books and a few pieces of clothes
Me: that’s already more than a “couple of items”
Her: never mind, we will try and fit it in her holdall bag
Me: I didn’t say I wouldn’t take them, I’m sure I can fit them in somehow
Her: God bless you.
20 minutes later she returned still tearful in anticipation of parting company with her beloved daughter who was on her way to England to start a 12 Month Masters degree at Bath University. The daughter was my niece and coincidentally, I was returning to England after a short visit so, I was entrusted with the not-so-difficult task of ensuring she is installed at university in one piece. We lived within an hour’s drive from Bath plus, our own daughter was about to go to university too so, we were already in “daughter installation” mode anyway.
She brought an armful of various items from books, to clothes, to cosmetics, hair curlers, hair straighteners, hair dryers, hair dampeners; everything but the girl, to coin a phrase. She dumped the lot on the bed and left the room before I could file a complaint.
I looked at my suitcase; looked at the newly acquired pile and was sure there was no physical possibility of fitting this Mount Everest of personal effects to my medium sized suitcase, which already had my own cherished personal effects. For the next hour I acquired new stacking & packing and pushing skills that put Tokyo Subway employees in the shade, and I did not wear white gloves either!
With a final flourish of sitting on the lid and pulling the zip round, I somehow managed to secure my luggage, praying it would not burst open before getting home. To make things easy for us, my brother had arranged for someone to collect our luggage and check it in at the Royal Jordanian City Terminal so that we did not have to bother to pull and drag the heavy suitcases around. I was grateful to get rid of my heavier than planned suitcase until I got to London.
The following morning I washed, dressed and packed my toiletries in my briefcase then joined the family for breakfast. The atmosphere was tense and breakfast was consumed in silence, except for the odd few words here and there. Finally, the time arrived to depart to the airport. My brother drove, I sat in the front so the mother could sit next to the departing daughter for a last minute set of instructions on the “Dos and Don’ts” of life at university. By way of releasing some of the tension, the two brothers cracked a few lame jokes, which were as welcome as a dead rat sandwich.
To heighten the tension further, we passed by the local school for the departing daughter to say goodbye to her baby sister who had left before breakfast. The mother went inside and returned with the tearful little girl to the car. For the next 3 minutes howling standards were redefined and I was there to witness the event! Comic relief was supplied by the elderly school caretaker who, with zero prior knowledge as to what the drama was all about, decided to intervene by reassuring the young sister that there was no need to cry as she would be reunited with her family later that day after school.
At the airport, goodbyes, kisses, hugs, more kisses and tear fluids were exchanged all round before we passed the point of no return of security checkpoint before passing through the glass partition. Necks were strained and hands waved through the frosted glass for the final time before we went through ticketing and passport control.
With all the farewell drama going on, I hadn’t noticed that I automatically assumed responsibility for my niece’s holdall bag as well as my own briefcase. How I failed to notice the holdall is difficult to fathom because it must have contained an elephant inside! Instinctively, I was swapping my briefcase and the holdall to prevent from ripping my arm muscles to shreds. It was the wrong policy; by the time we got home, I had lost the use of both arms, instead of sacrificing just one of them.
On the positive side, while we were waiting to board our flight and throughout the flight, we had a good time talking about all manner of things, she was a pleasant company talking enthusiastically about what she hoped to accomplish in the future, I was able to reassure her that she would have a great year living and studying in the beautiful Heritage City of Bath. By the time we landed at Heathrow Airport, she was now focused on the days ahead with a slight sense of nervousness about her studies and if she would make friends; the normal range of anxieties young people experience when faced with a new way of life.
We cleared passport control and descended the stairs to the “luggage claim” area, identified our carousel and began the anxious wait for our luggage to emerge. It was at this point that I remembered my very heavy suitcase and began to wonder if her suitcase was as heavy and considering the holdall I was already labouring to carry on her behalf, I decided it was sensible to get a trolley so, I left my niece to watch out for our suitcases while I went to look for a trolley. I returned a few minutes later and found her trying to drag a suitcase off the conveyor belt with the aid of a helpful fellow passenger. The three of us wrestled with the suitcase onto the trolley, which if it could speak, would have sworn at us! Eventually, my suitcase emerged and I somehow managed to drag it off and on to the trolley on top of her suitcase. I loaded the holdall as a third storey construction and began to manoeuvre the trolley towards the green “Nothing to Declare” exit.
Niece: Uncle, I have another suitcase
Me: I am sorry?
Niece: I have another suitcase to come out
Me: Please tell me you are joking
Niece: I am not joking; I have another suitcase
Me: What have you brought with you to England, Jordan?
Niece: No! Just stuff I need while I am here
Me: But you can buy “stuff” in England
Niece: Yes but this is MY stuff
With a killer argument like that, I ended the exchange and waited for the final piece of luggage to emerge. To while away the time, I took down the holdall and began to ponder my chances of successfully stacking four heavy pieces of luggage on the one trolley without tipping the whole pile on a human being and risking a long prison term. I did not feel too confident and began to regret not taking self-defence lessons that could have come in useful in jail.
The final suitcase emerged and it turned out to be the “Big Brother” of the other suitcases so, it had to go to the bottom of the pile. So, over the next 10 minutes, my niece stood and admired my handy work while I downloaded and uploaded the extremely heavy suitcases to end up with a dynamically stable stack. Being the considerate kind, my niece volunteered to carry my 2kg briefcase, while I tried to navigate half a houseful of contents around an extremely busy Heathrow Airport, without adding to my own injury list or introducing new and unsuspecting victims to the casualty list.
Luckily, I had a Volvo Estate car with very generous luggage space so the suitcases fitted without much problem in terms of space but in terms weight well, how the car did not flip on it’s backside, I shall never know.
As we drove off, I was sure my arms permanently gained a couple more inches in length, which would prove useful if I ever considered auditioning for the role of an orang-utan.
