Excess Baggage

I was sitting down for my morning coffee on Monday getting ready for my new commitment to write something every day. Actually I am calling it my write one edit two previous writings. The idea being that I can achieve my goal of posting to this blog once a week; if I write every day I may actually have something that I would want post at the end of the week.

While drinking my coffee and pondering on what to write I notice a businessman dressed in his official business attire, a suit, on his way to the airport express. For those of you not familiar with Hong Kong the Airport Express is a train that travels from Central, Hong Kong to the airport in about 26 minutes. He had to two bags with him .the first being the standard issue carry-on or roll-away bag quite normal for the average business traveler. This stood out to me not because he was the only person in the plaza but because of his struggle, one which I find myself dealing with when I am traveling. It was the second bag that caught my attention for this bag was really a briefcase of sorts. Well not an actual a briefcase more of a soft sided messenger type bag, something many of us use to place papers laptops and other stuff when going places. His struggle caught my eye reminding me of how I deal with this on a consistent basis, the annoyance of trying to balance the bag on top of the carry-on while rolling it. Now I don’t know about you but for me I have not discovered the secret trick to getting the bag balance correct and I find myself stopping every so often to adjust the bag back to the center, only to have it fall again and again.

I have tried the accessory bag clip that comes with the carry-on trying to get it set just right so that my bag doesn’t drag on the ground as I roll through the airport. I have studied the flight attendants and captains as you might have notice their bags seem to sit just right no doubt from countless hours of practice. I have studied and applied all of the tricks to effective packing so that your clothes don’t wrinkle, yet still struggle to figure out the best way to balance a bag. I am able to take satisfaction in knowing that I am not alone as I watched the fateful traveler struggling to open the door while his second bag tilted to the side pulling his arm in some strange angle. He did make it through. And as I admired his spirit I grabbed my bag and headed to the office to start my day.