My Life Weighs 170lbs
“I would like to imagine what Ana would do in Japan with her two huge luggage bags,” said Forrest.
“Yeah, but I’d also like to think of the poor small Japanese man who has to help her,” said Marc.
My friends will make fun of me after this post.
I packed two monstrosities that were both over-sized and overweight. When I hauled the two of them at the Air Canada check-in counter, a kind portly Air Canada clerk in the name of Bob looked on as I stacked one of of the bags on the scale. He looked at me, looked at the bags, then looked at me again and finally rested his sights on the screen.
“So with both of those luggages, you’re about 70lbs over. You would need to empty out the extra weight,” he took out a form and pointed to the side of open space and weight scales. He handed me some clear plastic bags. “Take these and put the extras in here. I would double up the bags too for extra measure. Also, if you use another set of bags, I would have to charge you for those.”
Damn.
I emptied out my luggage of the heaviest items first, my books, and then proceeded to empty out the luggage in random. Onlookers were amused as I haphazardly threw underwear, shoes, and random odds and ends into the plastic bags. Bob chuckled as he watched me inbetween helping other passengers as I would put the luggage on the scale and gasp in exclaimation when the weight was still too much.
“You’re a pretty good packer if you managed to pack it all in only two bags, “he said. “Why do you need all those?”
“I’m, er …” I picked up the clear plastic bag, hefted it on my shoulders and tried to carefully take the lopsided thing on the scale. THUD! “Er, ah. I’m moving to Japan.”
“Oh! Japan! That’s exciting.”
“Er, yes. Dammit – still 15 lbs to go on this one.” My cellphone buzzed. A text message from … Forrest?
From: Forrest
Get any hilarious look at the luggage checkin?
9:07A Fri Mar 19
From: Ana
Yes. Also, have to repack with extra plastic bags.
9:10A Fri Mar 19
From: Forrest
Just beat the air canada staff to death with your luggage!
9:15A Fri Mar 19
I smiled, noticing that Bob was looking interested at my repacking progress. “You know, ” I said. “if you consider the fact that I’m moving to Japan, my life condensed into 170 lbs is not a whole lot of things.”
Two 50lb luggage, one 70lb over-sized luggage, and $225 CDN later I was Japan bound.
Or so I thought.
I was stopped at the security screening. It wasn’t anything serious. I had to place all three of my lip glosses into plastic baggies. Even though that was the cause of the search, the security still had to look through everything as per protocol. The security officer was amused as she pulled out all my MAC make-up, my little Hello Kitty nail clipper, my Nokomis laptop bag with a print screen of an old-fashioned typewriter, my Pupa make-up kit, my PS3 games and random Japanese language books. She and her cohort chuckled at the various items, occasionally pointing out something they thought was especially interesting like God of War 3 and my copy of French Girls Don’t Get Fat. “You are quite the girl,” She said to me. I am glad that my belongings are amusing for officials.
No more dilemmas right? Wrong.
Once I arrived in Japan, I decided to use their luggage delivery service to have my 170 lbs of life weight brought to the hotel, so then I don’t have to haul it on the trains. After paying 5690¥ (approx. $60CDN) to a kind Japanese man, he struggled with all three bags – I contemplated in video taping it, but thought the better of it — and wished me well. In retrospect I realized I could have saved 1890¥ by taking the time and repacking it all into the two original luggage but after a 10+ hour flight I was ready to crash into my room and sleep. Of course, not before posting this.
Oh, did I mention that my ineffectual arms are being toned by my 20lb carry-on and my 10lb purse during this whole ordeal?
Thank you Steph for this video. I heart!