I Hate Suitcases

I recently came back from visiting my family in Scotland for Christmas, and foolishly I had taken my suitcase, a small and trusty old thing given to me by my aunt and fitting cabin bag size requirements perfectly. It always feels quite big to me despite other people looking lovingly at it because in their minds, this is a baby suitcase. For babies. But to me it's sort of large. It's all the space I'd ever need. And the bigger suitcases frighten and alarm me. They are monsters, looming above me like that huge plinth thing that all the apes gaze at in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The monolith.

The thing is, my suitcase is really at the limit of what I can handle. I realised this on my way back home this time when I felt just how sore the underside of my knuckles were getting from dragging it. When I hobbled up stairs with it, leaning so far to one side that I was sent a cease and desist by the estate of Michael Jackson. When I made a very tragic attempt at lifting it towards the overhead space on my flight to Gatwick and could barely manage lifting it to my hips. This suitcase is beyond my range of athletic ability.

Thankfully, I don't struggle all that much with it in the grand scheme of things, and kind passengers will help me to lift things, which is nice, but what if the wheels break one day and I'm left with the sheer horror of having to drag it across the floor like a dog dragging its bum across a rug, but without the joy (for the dog)? And really, this suitcase is heavy and bulky enough without anything in it that I don't feel that comfortable using it at all.

The most damning thing about suitcases, however, is the bruising. I have a habit of being mildly yet agonisingly injured while travelling. On my flight to New York last year I walked so hard into the tray in front of my seat on the way back from the toilet that it really hurt to lightly touch my thigh for days. In Berlin in January of the same year my new plastic braces had an unfortunate stabby bit that gave me an incredible ulcer, making eating torture for about a week. In Iceland in February 2016 my boots, which had previously been fine, took the opportunity at that moment to decide to rub the backs of my ankles into bloody hellscapes, which stung for the entire holiday.

It's been fun.

At least I've always enjoyed those trips regardless of my physical suffering. But the sheer amount of leg bruises I have this time from various minor suitcase collisions, and the weird bruisy sensitivity between all of my fingers' phalanges that I have from pulling it behind me, have convinced me to abandon the suitcase for good.

No more shall I suffer. I'll take a backpack instead. A pack for your back. It's better. I hope I remember to never use a suitcase, to never even look at a suitcase again. No thanks! I'd really like to avoid all the strange knocks and bruises, and also that time I caught my little finger in the extendable handle's telescope. Awful. Suitcases are cancelled. No more suitcase.

All I really need is my passport and a small bottle of white wine anyway, right?