Luggage Anxiety

I have a confession: despite being a seasoned nomad, I suffer from luggage anxiety. Fortunately, it’s not debilitating and I’m still able to travel in spite of it.

There are 2 main symptoms to my particular affliction.

Firstly, I have a complex about packing light. When embarking on a journey, I’m always concerned that I will have the appearance of packing too much, or will be perceived as a frivolous girl who must have packed excessive pairs of shoes and a blow dryer. This fear is unfounded, as I generally have a tendency to under-pack, finding myself with inadequate footwear options and unruly hair. I’m often told how lightly I travel, and yet, I can’t seem to take this compliment(?) to heart. I attribute the source of this complex to my brother. He is very likely the lightest packer I know and manages to survive on little more than one pair of trousers and a toothbrush for impressively long periods. I suspect my problem is rooted in the repressed memory of some self-satisfied comments he made in the past during cheeky adolescent years comparing his light and miniscule luggage to my (relatively speaking) bulky load.

My second symptom is airport weigh scale anxiety. I have a fear when checking in that my luggage will be overweight and I’ll either have to have a fight with the airline representative, or submit and pay a hideous fine. Again, this fear is unfounded, as I most often travel under the luggage allowance. However, there have been a few odd occasions when I’ve found myself overweight. Which brings me to the story from my journey back to Juba that inspired this post. I’d like to entitle it:

“Goodness prevails over evil once again: the importance of being nice (and earnest)”

Ethiopian Airlines has a new policy on hand luggage. Or rather, they have the same policy as has been in place for a while (1 piece, 7 kg), but they’re suddenly enforcing it and enforcing it strictly which comes as a surprise to most travellers who are used to getting away with using this little loophole in the system. At check-in, you have to sign a waiver stating that you know you are only allowed 7kg, and if it’s over, you have to check it and will be charged 10 Pounds for every kg over 7.

I weighed at check in and with my 2 laptops and 5 cameras (purchases for Sudan), came in at 11.6 kg. Darn. I explained that I couldn’t check it in because they were laptops, and she said, “ok, well see if you can reduce it at all and go to the gate and they will charge you for the excess there”.

So…after going through security, I re-packed, stuffing as many things as I could into my pockets (thank goodness for my puffy down vest!) and carried my book in my hand (hey – they don’t check body weight!). At the gate, my bag still came in at 10kg, - 3 overweight. I did my best to be sweet, patient and respectful as I explained my situation, unlike a few of the other passengers who were clearly abusing the system and being quite loud and aggressive about not being allowed through with all their hand luggage and overflowing duty-free bags.

It was all quite amusing, though a bit stressful. The airline “bouncers” were getting really upset and the passengers were doing a lot of shouting. I kept quiet and tried my best to look pitiable and innocent. They kept telling me to just wait, just wait. For a while I feared I might miss the plane, but just kept waiting, as instructed. At one point I asked the guy again if he’d help me and he said “I’m trying to help you…I just can’t do it in front of everyone else”.

In the end, my strategy paid off. After waiting for nearly 45 minutes, they ushered me through sneakily without saying a peep and didn’t charge me anything. Very lucky!

Let niceness reign.

Photos & highlights from my winter escape to Canada to come shortly....