Weighty Issues

My mother-in-law left Friday night. It was an emotional goodbye. Those get harder after grand babies are born, I think. But the real trial came the night BEFORE the departure.

The Packing.

Everyone who visits Pakistan frequently, or who has had in-laws visit from Pakistan or the like knows exactly what I'm talking about: The Weight Limits

When you travel internationally, your luggage is subject to weight restrictions. I think each air carrier might be different, but for us this weekend, the weight limit for the bags was 23 kgs. That's only 51 pounds per bag. And the 1 carry-on piece was limited to 7 kgs - 15 pounds.

What's the big deal, you ask? Every airline has weight limits for the bags. Yes, but not every passenger is stuffing their bags to the absolute limit with gifts and American products to take back home. This luggage situation is so bad that everyone I know tests the check-in counter worker's patience by packing way over the limit and then trying to sneak, scam, or charm their way into not having to pay overweight baggage charges. Friends and family members try to take advantage of the opportunity to send things even thought they KNOW that every ounce is precious. 

The first time we went to Pakistan, the limits were higher. Back then you could pack 70 pound per bag, and since each person could bring 2 bags, that meant we could take 280 pounds of stuff with us. Not even 1/2 of the first bag was our own things - the rest was all gifts. One family member sent 23 pounds of stuff for us to take for them. A friend of M's who is still in Pakistan had his cousin in American ship things to us so we could take them with us too. And we'd over-bought in the months leading up to our trip as well. All in all we headed off to the airport with more than 100 extra pounds of stuff. Eight pounds extra in each bag ("Eight is fine. They won't make a big deal over just eight pounds. It's not like it's 10!") and both of our 15 pound carry-on bags weighed more than 45 pounds! 

On the way back it was even worse. We'd overpacked even worse because it had worked so well on the way out. But the guy at the counter couldn't be charmed. He made us open our bags - on the floor of the Karachi airport - to take stuff out. I had to find all the little jade souvenirs and all the other heavy items I could think of that we'd bought and stick them in my coat pockets. We were still overweight, but eventually he let our bags through with a scowl. But then on the way to the gate an official asked to see my carry-on and that was so overweight he made us go BACK to the check-in counter where they called our bags BACK from wherever the conveyor belt had taken them so we could distribute our contraband into the regular luggage. Plus more scowling.

Suffice it to say that the luggage thing was a source of stress for me during our first trip and I vowed never to do that again. The second time we visited, our bags were not one pound over limit, and it was lovely not to have to stress out about it at all. On the way home we paid overweight baggage fees in advance so we could be similarly stress-free even though we were bringing too much stuff.

We'd even convinced my mother-in-law of the beauty of traveling stress-free like that. Well, mostly. The bags were only 2 pounds over limit, so close enough. Enough that I wasn't at all stressed out about it, at least. 

The night of packing was still a little stressful though, because we had to argue about what to take and what to leave. M is the kind of person who wants to take out 1/2 of the candy from the bag right away while he's arranging the first bag because he's so sure it's going to be overweight and we're going to have to take out half anyway. I'm the kind of person that wants to at least get everything into the bags the first time - THEN weigh them and make the decisions about what stays and what goes. We always end up doing something halfway between - he takes some stuff out, I argue to keep some stuff in, and then after we weigh them and they're still overweight, we still have to go back through anyway. (Which is my whole point - if you have to go back through it anyway, why not just weigh it first anyway and THEN do the decision making? But I digress...)

So come Friday morning the bags were packed. Everything was on-track for a stress-free departure. And then a family friend drops by - literally a few hours before the flight - with a few pounds of stuff she wanted my MIL to take with her. 

Ugh.