368. Packing

I am upstairs on the landing not doing anything in particular and not even blaming himself for it. Thinking I should really be pro-active I start to make my way downstairs when I hesitate.

I can hear my husband talking. His voice sounds serious and concerned. He also sounds like a teacher who cannot believe all his lessons have come to nothing.

'I mean, come on! You're 23 years old now. You should know better.'

I stop. What kind of crisis is underway, 24 hours before Miss Organiser's big departure. Usually the sound of Miss Organiser's voice answering back and arguing would be heard. I want to know what is going on and I immediately make my way down the stairs. As I reach the bottom step (which used to be the naughty step) I can see Miss Organiser sitting on the floor, her suitcase and her holdall wide open and piles and piles of clothes all round her and her father standing there asking questions and giving instructions.

'How many pairs of jeans in here?' He's pointing to the case.

'5' 

'5 pairs of jeans! 5! This is simply ridiculous!' Then he sees me.

'% pairs of jeans. She's taking 5 pairs of jeans. Now how ridiculous does that sound to you?'

Then he shakes his head.

'Really! You should really be more reasonable than that. I mean who takes so much stuff to go on holiday?'

'I'm not going on holiday!' 'I'm ...' But Miss Organiser cannot finish her sentence, her dad is on to the next question.

'How many tee-shirts?'

'Erm ... about 15.'

'FIFTEEN?'

And he goes on some more about her age and how she is her father's daughter and we're back to how he walked across Africa with just one tiny rucksack. While he is speaking Miss Organiser is sheepishly and regretfully taking the teeshirts out of her case. She is showing them to me as the decision on which to keep and which to leave behind is hard. 

The question gets repeated for dresses and swimming costumes and more suff but then the process is too slow and complicated and he sends his daughter upstairs to get the pump to deflate all the vacuum packed stuff and goes through taking out things he thinks are useless. This triggers in me the guilty bad mother feelings I had not felt for a long long time (as the kids were away from home).

'Our fault (may as well include the father here), I mean from a very young age we've let them, encouraged them to pack their own bags ... and now ...'

'Yes!' Baby pipes in from the depth of the dining room where she is writing a letter of complaint to a famous brand of ice-cream cones because she has noticed that lately the cones were not as crunchy as they used to be. 'Remember I had scissors and a fork and a compass in my rucksack?'

My husband does not hear us. His mind is set on how to reduce reduce reduce. 

'You cannot be travelling with so much stuff. So much weight.'

I carry on doing nothing and Baby carries on writing. Maybe she'll ask me to correct the spelling mistakes and then I'll be doing something useful too.