At last, it’s true countdown time. Tonight I take my last dose of Dukoral, the magic potion that keeps my tummy safe. This weekend I start the nightmare pills (that would be the ones for malaria). I’ve already packed my suitcase with most of my stuff and have been madly emailing my friend Barbara to see if I need to pack linens and towels (after all she is setting up a brand new household down there). When I mentioned I was bringing food and coffee, she asked
“What food? What coffee? We are going to a civilized place, girl.”
So I had to confess that I am addicted to that plebian of coffees, Instant. My choice of poison being Tasters’ Choice. Forget lattes and cappacinos, I am an instant coffee girl from way back when it was the new way to go! As my father told my ex-boyfriend many years ago, “Susanne’s outstanding quality is loyalty.” Even to brand names.
The other food item is instant oatmeal (you might say I am sort of an instant kind of girl). Now, my breakfast of choice is dry toast with Dofino cheese but as I am pretty sure I am not going to be safe with any kind of cheese I have to go to my old standby – Quaker Instant Oatmeal (Brown Sugar and Maple). I might not be going to the Antipodes but I’m pretty sure the Quaker hasn’t seen Ecuador!
What other little tidbits am I smuggling into the suitcase? Well, as I wrote a while back I’ve got plenty of Deet. Remember The Lonely Planet book also suggested rope? Well, I felt a bit foolish putting in rope so I got a couple of packs of dental floss. Do you suppose that I might need some of that for whatever it is I am supposed to use the rope for? I don’t know either but I figure it’s small so throw them in there!
One of the crazy things I bought at the Dollar Store years ago was a plastic pancho so that’s gone in there as well since finding a raincoat in the middle of an Alberta winter is not the easiest thing to find. Now one thing I am still in dire need of is brand new underwear. I don’t know how you were trained as a kid but my mother was always insistent that a girl can never have enough clean underwear because you just never know when someone is going to see it! I well recall the moment I walked in on my mother desperately trying to call my dad at work because my baby sister had fallen down and broken her arm (in 3 places as it turned out). Mom was so frazzled she couldn’t find his number so I took over that duty. So what did she do then? She proceeded to change the poor child’s underwear because she didn’t want Charlotte to go to the hospital in dirty underwear. This entailed jiggling her broken arm to get the undershirt off of her. I have been scarred for life after that moment! Need I say more? Clean underwear is a necessity, and plenty of it.
So packing is pretty well taken care of. Tomorrow I will discuss my bizarre imagination and where it has taken me so far on this adventure!
Here we have Thumper trying to go with me to Ecuador (actually, it was Norway, but what the hay!) Apropos!
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