Some Times, Saving Ain't Saving

There's a lot of preparatory work involved in vacationing. There is also a lot of work in being on vacation. Living out of a suit case is never fun. That part you just live with.
If you didn't bring it, it falls into one of two categories; you either don't really need it and had best put it out of your mind, or you do, and it's only as far away as the nearest Walmart Super Center. So you try to pack light. For people like me, that don't travel much, packing is enough to bring on a nervous break down, so you pack the Xanax. After that, anything forgotten is a minor faux pas. After two Xanax, it's erased completely from the conscious and semi-conscious mind for the next 4 to 6 hours.

The last time I flew nail clippers were not considered a dangerous weapon, that is, not until the return flight. My last leisure trip scheduled for takeoff soon after those chemically unbalanced sheet heads declared war on the USA. I became a little concerned over everyone else not wanting me to cancel my flights.

Aside from being cornered into the purchase opportunity on account of our suitcase being 4 pounds over weight, of an extra large sport bag of the cheesy mail order variety offered by our airline at the low-low price of $25 , I guess we did okay. I should say, I did okay, John had to haul them all over three states.

We did the usual gift buying and stayed one step ahead of a ruptured disc by mailing our purchases home. That did however eat four hours out of our trip. It wasn't easy finding the proper packaging for an old 1960's Hummingbird guitar I bought back from my brother-in-law. Even my favorite, Rich Hunts, was no longer there. I guess he got tired of running a store and a music career. We could've saved time if we hadn't sat waiting for the local replacement music store owner to leisurely open his doors only to find he had no boxes. It wasn't a complete loss though, he told us where to find the new music mega center out by the electronics super center. I was so lost. I grew up there, but nothing was the same. Last I checked that area was covered in a large chicken ranch.

We found the place. They tried to sell me a hard shell case for twice what I recently paid at MusiciansFriend.com and I told him so. We rummaged the dumpster for guitar boxes and boy were there boxes! My old Hummer came home in style in a top-of-the-line Taylor cardboard box, inside a Takamine sarcophagus(My personal favorite axe maker). It arrived unscathed. No NEW scathing that is, I scathed the shit out of it years earlier at a beach party in Del Mar and various other volleyball BBQ's I attended before public consumption of alcoholic beverages was banned by the healthy people, which I might add did manage to make it illegal to be a smoker in public places as well since I left. Wouldn't want that to compete with all the other grayish-orangy colored stuff floating in the air now would we?

We still came home with more than we left with. I can blame my unbreakably annoying habit of value shopping. I ran out of shampoo and could not pay $1 for a wee little vial when I could get 4 pounds of it for the same. I made that kind of purchase more than once. And now we have this stupid sports bag we'll never use again, but the best part is, I've got all my unnecessary essentials surrounding me, right where I like them.
6/2/2005 2:11 AM
word count 647