After traveling for nine months, you get pretty good at packing your bag at the end of the stay. Rolling up clothes, stuffing things into the corners, by now we can clear out our belongings in 15 minutes flat. At our last speed packing session, it started to seem a little too easy. I looked from my partially filled bag to Zach's and noticed that neither of our bags were as full as they used to be. I started poking around, looking for the answer to this mystery. It wasn't there. Literally, because I started realizing how many things were simply gone.
I started making a mental list of my own things I had lost before I turned to the things we shared. Opening up our electronics bag, which had been carefully organized with cords and plugs when we started, I found it half empty. Confused more than alarmed, I turned to Zach and asked, "Do you know what we're missing from this?" He stared at the opened bag for a long second, before meeting my eyes and saying, without any hint of emotion, "I don't even care anymore."
Since we've finished our trip, I suppose it's time to check our inventory and see all the things we lost. So here's a list of all the things we don't even care about anymore:
Multitool - Lost stumbling home in the South of France after one too many glasses of wine.
Single socks - That is, socks I discovered were missing when I could only find one in my bag.
Three hats - Two black and one tan beanie with no idea where we lost them.
One olive scarf - Left on a train in a moment of panic when we had to run to catch a bus. RIP (Rest in Poland)
One cozy undershirt - Another garment left behind on some train, but most likely in Germany this time. RIG
Winry's toys - God only knows how many or what ones.
Zach's sunglasses - Left in a host's car even after being repeatedly reminded to get them.
One umbrella - Never made it out of Italy.
One pair of sandals - Actually stolen off my bag rather than stolen while we were on a train, so this one isn't our fault.
Winry's leash - Left on the plane at JFK airport. We're not safe from losing things even in America.
Winry's leash - Left on the plane at JFK airport. We're not safe from losing things even in America.
And probably many more that we don't even remember.
There is bright spot in this never ending saga and it happened the same hazy night we lost Zach's multitool. After making it home from the bar, we went straight to bed to try and catch some sort of sleep before our train the next morning. While we had too much wine, I apparently still had the presence of mind to take off my necklace apparently due to some subconscious fear of it poking me in my sleep. But of course taking it off meant just throwing it somewhere far from my body and I completely forgot it the next morning. Thankfully Kerry, our host, found it on the ground and sent it to our location in England. So hats off to Kerry for saving the day!
As for everything else, sweet dreams.
H W Z
