Leaving For Egypt. Again.

September 19, 2012. Waterloo, Ontario.

I’m still not sure what happened at work today. Meetings were attended, lunch was eaten, and log entries were made in my black notebook. I set my email and phone to give an automated message that I would be out of the office for two and a half weeks. I turned off the computer, turned out the lights in my office, and left the building as I would have on any other day.

I’ve been putting this off for more than a week now, but it can’t wait any more. My pre-trip freak-out has begun in earnest.

Packing. Or rather, PACKING! Imagine a trumpet blaring as you read that word, or maybe ten trumpets, and a surge of adrenalin making you so amped up you can barely think straight. What do I bring? Everything I own? Can do! What? One suitcase? Is it dimensionally transcendental? Do they still make steamer trunks? Is there some flea market I could buy one at? Do they still have flea markets? (And so on.)

Packing the technology is easy. Camera, laptop, cables, power supplies, adapters, a yellow network cable, a mouse. Maybe my rubber keyboard if there’s room in the suitcase. And then granola bars, a couple of chocolate bars, a fly swatter (learned that on the second trip – there’s nothing worse than the sinking feeling of inevitability as you lie awake in bed, in the dark, straining to hear the on-again, off-again whine of a mosquito in your room, knowing that it’s homing in on the carbon dioxide you’re trying not to exhale. Maybe sleeping with a sheet over your head will keep it at bay. That’s fine for a minute at most, and then the air turns stuffy, and you start to sweat, and you wonder which is worse: itchy welts come morning, or losing a litre of water in sweat. It doesn’t matter; sooner or later you’ll have to fall asleep, and then your guard is down and the buffet is open).

What else? Medication for stomach ailments – Pepto Bismol, Immodium, Gravol – the holy trinity to protect against the indignity of losing control of your body far so from home, so far from a bathroom. Sun screen, laundry soap, a plastic hanger (handy for drying anything you might choose to wash in the hotel sink), a rubber stopper for the sink (because you never know), a map, a ten-year old guidebook tossed on top, and by then the suitcase is comfortably filled.

Apparently it’s also customary to take some clothes with you too. Deep breath. Socks, underwear, pants. How many pairs? How many shirts? Fall nights are starting to dip down into the single digits here in Ontario. The muggy haze of summer is a quickly fading memory, but it’s still 30+ degrees in Cairo, and no amount of mental strain can help you remember what that kind of heat feels like. It’s hard to be sure, but I’m almost positive I don’t need to pack a sweater, but I might try anyway. Because you never know, I think to myself, and then wonder what it is I think I don’t know. I’ve done this before. Five times. I should have it down by now.

Address labels. I have to make up address labels tonight of dear friends and loved ones (You know who are you. Or aren’t.) The labels are a great time-saver when it comes to writing postcards. Everyone gets ten minutes of stream-of-consciousness which probably makes no sense at all, printed in tiny block capital letters. Slap on an address label and a stamp, and it’s done. Easy.

A couple of years ago, I heard American astronaut Michael Collins muse about autographs. Why do so many people want autographs from him, he wondered. What do they do with all of them? The same question can be asked of post cards. Why do we send them, only to arrive home before the cards do. And then what? They are read in seconds, and displayed on the fridge for a couple of weeks, but can you ever get rid of them? I have a binder in which I file every post card anyone has ever sent me. I have cards of industrial cities in England from the late 1970s that my parents sent me – nasty pictures of roundabouts and grubby hotels. I cherish them, you understand, because no one makes postcards like that any more, but that’s not the point. It’s a burden to care for the cards until they no longer have meaning; it’s space in a box or in a binder on a shelf. It’s work, dammit!

Oh – but maybe you’re the type who just throws away their cards after reading them. And maybe you don’t feel compelled to save Christmas cards, either. Look at all the time you’re saving by not storing them in folders, carefully arranged by year, with your own notes on the backs to remind you who this person was who sent you a card of a happy cartoon snowman. How happy will he be after you’ve tossed him into a recycling bin after you’ve had your fun with him? I hope you can live with yourself. See if I send you anything ever again, card killer.

Yup – the freak-out is in full swing. We’ll have more as the story develops.