Vignettes of Absurdity
traveling with women by Bud Hearn
The Scene: A typical American home on the eve of a trip.
her wardrobe. Her shoe rack alone was sufficient to jump-start a shoe emporium. He had once suggested this. Bad mistake!
The Cast: A man, a woman. He comes home from work. His wife is standing in the carport. The car trunk’s open. She has in her hands a measuring tape, a calculator and a list. “Hi, whatcha doing?” he says. But he already knows. She’s preparing for their trip. She answers, “I’m computing the cubic feet of this trunk to see if our luggage will fit. Based on my metrics, you’re pretty much outta luck. There’s no room for your luggage.” What’s new, he thinks. He wants to argue, but why? He knows the results. All men do. He thinks of where it all went wrong. It was the new addition to the house, he remembers. It was added to accommodate
She lives to travel. Mention “trip” and she says “When?” She even named the dog Trip. Volumes of travel magazines are stacked in the bookcases. A “Traveling for Dummies” book, dog-eared and underlined, lies next to a world globe with pins sticking from it. He wonders if her parents were gypsies. He recalls having once asked her. He recorded her response in his journal under the heading of “Questions by a Fool.” For two months she had been preparing for this trip. The process is always the same. It begins with The List. It consumes weeks and totally disrupts all normal household life. “What’s for dinner?” is met with silence. The List is a computerized inventory of all her possessions. He once commented that it was longer than War and Peace, an unwise analogy as it turned out. He decided not to do this again. After The List comes the logistics phase. This is a complex operation...ask any man who has traveled with a woman. It requires a great deal of time and a very large home. The List cannot match outfits and shoes, coordinate colors, select jewelry. So clothes must be laid out for proper combinations. They occupy all flat surfaces in the house, including the beds. He sleeps in his car. This goes on for weeks. The vagabond clothes are arranged, rearranged, sorted, rejected and replaced. He wonders if clothes have feelings when they become “trip rejects,” overlooked because of age, and substituted with new, more spiffy outfits. He pities the derelict garments. He extrapolates this thought, wondering if one day he’ll be one of her castoffs. Maybe. He smiles at the possibility.
Time gets short. She becomes manic. She now moves with warp speed. She’s packing medicines and cosmetics. The bathroom bulges with bottles, tubes, lotions, pills, powders and beauty products. It resembles an aisle at Walgreen’s. He brushes his teeth at the lawn spigot. He bathes in the pool. Finally, she’s packed. “What are you taking?” she asks. He visits his cubicle, takes out a few shirts, pants and blue sneakers. She says, “You’re not wearing THOSE, are you?” He knows the look and answers, “Of course not. What do you suggest?” She shakes her head and says, “Whatever,” leaving him alone to ponder. He decides with dispatch. He grabs a pair of jeans, a shirt and his blue blazer. He stuffs in the pockets a tooth brush, razor and Zantac. “There, all packed,” he says. Her bags stare back at him with scorn. He ponders the dilemma of excess baggage. He concludes it’s because women are embarrassed to be judged by strangers on account of their clothes. He assumes these thoughts are the vestiges of an aberrant gene dominant in the female species. Who cares, he wonders. He doesn’t get it. He sits on the floor, remembering how simple travel used to be. He tries to reconcile the hassle versus the allure of traveling with women. The concept of “excess baggage” enters his mind. Her fault, he thinks. Maybe she’s excess baggage….but the thought ends there. She shouts, “Let’s go. Bring the bags. Won’t we have fun?” He does, they do. And so it always goes, Traveling with Women. Get used to it! Bud Hearn was born in Valdosta and grew up in Colquitt. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he moved to Sea Island in 2004. He cohosts the weekly Friday Forum community lunches at the McKinnon-St. Simons Airport, invests in real estate, writes Inane Vignettes (two books), and also engages in travel, photography and piano playing.