Off the Cuff: Living out of a suitcase

You must have heard of the expression ‘living out of a suitcase', which describes the daily routine of busy executives who fly to happening destinations all the time.

These lucky people are always jetting off to exciting locales in some corner of the globe while poor folk like you and me plan and plan about making a weekend trip to Fujairah and Dhaid.

While these jet-setting lifestyle may seem very exciting to us grounded folk, after a while its gets monotonous for these executives, like taking a bus to the next emirate. "I was in and out of conference rooms the whole time", said one tired executive, who confessed he barely saw anything of Dubai the last time he was here.

But all that travelling makes these people efficient at packing their suitcases; they know exactly what's needed and what to carry and what to discard, unlike me, who pulls along a large bulging box on wheels, up the escalator, down the elevator, on the moving walkway, across the long hall to the boarding gate, every time I get on a plane.

Because I am carrying so many things for a week's trip, it confuses the security officer, who looks suspiciously at the X-ray screen. "What's that?" he barks, calling me over to his side. It looks menacingly like a long-handled knife, but I am sure I didn't pack anything like it.

Blame game

I quickly think about whether I can blame it on my wife if I am arrested. (At some airports, security officers ask you if you have packed the suitcase yourself, giving you a chance to bad mouth your wife, who usually packs for you).

I was reminded of the expression ‘living out of a suitcase' when I was given a lift by my friend in her car the other day.

It was like travelling in a miniature home on wheels; there were various types of shoes under the seats; dress shoes, casual shoes and trainers for the occasional walk around Al Safa Park, I presumed.

Real danger

There were bags of dresses and stuff on the back seat and I wondered what would happen if there was a crash and all this junk came flying at me: there was no way I could untangle myself from this, I thought to myself.

This was another person on the go, who can change at the drop of a hat, so to speak. "Many times, I have to go to events and getting home to change is stressful," she explained.

The nerve-wracking traffic jams in our cities have made some of us modern-day nomads.

But there are some who love to cart around junk around wherever they go. I had a journalist friend in a previous newspaper where I worked whose car was a recycler's delight; the back seats were packed with old newspapers and every time he braked they would slide off and disperse under the seats.

Accompanying him to any consulate parties was embarrassing as I had to studiously ignore the shocked look on the parking valet's face as he looked at the yellowing pages. "I need to clip some of my articles," said my friend casually as to why he was a travelling library. I am sure that today he would have been fined for being a fire hazard.

Though I travel with a lot of junk, I do not live out of a suitcase in my car. I checked my car trunk the other day and all that was there was a colourful, plastic beach mat which I had put in a long time ago in the hope of spending a relaxing day at the beach one day.

And yes, I once carried a kilogram of filleted fish in my car trunk for a week. I had forgotten about it after a grocery run, but that's another story.