Carry-on Calamity

This Saturday, I leave for San Francisco to attend a conference and then to visit my lovely friend Katherine, extending my visit by a few days. I have never been to California before, and my quick trip to Las Vegas a few weeks back was my first jaunt over to the left coast, so, naturally, this impending trip has me quite excited and will hopefully prove to be a productive and pleasant adventure. Unfortunately, timing is not perfect, as my niece is still cozy and comfortable right where she is, with no ostensible intentions at this juncture in breaking the seal and heading over to this side of life. Needless to say, I am anxious and wish nothing but comfort and ease to my beautiful sister in these final days of pregnancy.

Before leaving for Prague back in June, another harried yet thrilling business sojourn, I impulsively, due to a limited array of options and self-enforced constrictions on prices, purchased a silver gray tote meets purse meets laptop case. My current quotidian laptop case is a large black canvas computer-casket from the mid-1990s, a relic from one of my father's earlier cinder block laptops for work. Surprisingly, unlike many other paraphernalia from his company, including sweatshirts that my mother still dons, the logo was not emblazoned across the front. Also surprisingly, this black boxy bag is very heavy, even when empty of all its contents. So, in the face of international travel, here enters the desire for a nicely sized, but not overtly heavy, carry-on that would accommodate not only my laptop, but other odds and ends. Because snatching and paying 20$ for a carry-on bag seemed all too easy, of course, the zipper broke during the cab ride to the airport, to Prague, before I even departed sweet and free American soil. Apparently, what it lacked in aesthetic form, it did not make up for with pragmatic function.

Now, my spine continually reeling from the drudgery of this piece of antique technology accessory, I again find myself looking for a quick and affordable, and hopefully more durable fix. While speaking with my mother last night, my father, as is his penchant, interjected throughout from the background, as though he and she were residing in a single, close-quarters room. When explaining my dilemma of the carry-on, he suggested I investigate Tumi. A baritone voice, low, it carries, and vibrates through the telephones to my own ossicles, clear and resounding. For a variety of reasons, my father has not been one to whom I turn for consultation on anything sartorial; that being said, he, for a man of his age and position, has a classic and clean eye for good design and a certain type of beauty, one that perhaps needs some editing or some imagination, but one that is not inherently flawed. Tumi has an array of beautiful professional women's accessories, and I fell hard for this tweed laptop meets purse meets successful businesswoman's briefcase; it is beyond my budget and would not arrive in time for my Saturday deadline, however, a girl can dream. I am considering writing a sweetly worded letter to Santa Claus, and crossing my fingers that I am on the list of good and nice boys and girls.

(image taken from Tumi)