Packing Light? A Test Run

We're going on a trip in the spring which will mark our return to flying after more than three years (don't tell Mal). The environmental impacts bother me, but we're going far enough away that we can't afford (time or money) to drive up, spending more nights in hotels and having to take more time off of work.

Because of how expensive it is to check bags, and because we're going to be relying on public transit to get to our hotel and back to the airport, we do not want to take anything more than a carry-on and personal bag for each of us.

The past couple of trips we've taken, I've tried paring down what I pack. This time, we took half of the clothes we'd "need" if we were wearing new clothes every day. I also had some Febreze to freshen everything up at night, and some laundry soap if we encountered stains. I didn't have to wash anything, but I did have a couple of "wardrobe malfunctions" that I hadn't anticipated.

Getting undressed the first night, I realized that the seam of my (many years old) leggings had worn through. Again. I've sewed them probably three times. They just gave up the ghost this time. So there went one pair of pants I couldn't rewear.

A couple of days later, as I was changing into pajamas, I realized that the jeans I'd worn that day had a quarter-sized hole in the right buttock!! I'd worn them so much, they'd gotten "concrete butt" and had just rubbed straight through. (James assures me that it wasn't visible when the pants were on, but he's also not super observant, so I'm skeptical.)

Finally, one of the shirts I'd worn has elastic around both sleeves. The elastic came untacked from the seam on the right arm. I have a small sewing kit in my purse and was able to darn 2 holes in socks while we were there, but this is more of an operation than the tools I had could handle. So I did rewear that shirt, but it felt weird with one fitted arm and one loose one.

My lesson: Closely inspect clothes before packing them! Also, I needed to replace the clothes I discarded. When we were packing to leave, I realized that I've also worn the bottoms of my sneakers through in a couple of places, and have worn the tread down the rest of the shoe. As much as I hate spending money, I needed stuff. So I ended up buying shoes from the same brand I am replacing (Keen) when I looked and saw that I'd bought those shoes in July 2021 and have worn them walking almost every day since about a year ago, when I had to take my Skechers out of rotation because the bottoms of those are worn out, as well.