Herbert the stowaway

Yeah, it's a bit infantile, but I have taken to calling my plastique owl "Herbert," or "Herb," for short. He's named after the french word for owl hibou, which sounds a little like Herbert if you use un peu d'imagination.

Anyway, today I selected my travel wardrobe from a preliminary group of choices that I made yesterday.  I put them in one of the closets upstairs to separate them from the clothes that are not qualified to be garments for travel. Today, with these clothes, I had a fashion show to see how many chic-ish combinations I could come up with from the fewest number of articles. My goal was to get my clothes, Herb and a few other necessary items in my carryon bag. Herbert watched the whole process from his perch on the nightstand.

When I had culled my wardrobe to an acceptable number of pieces, I put Herb in my bag to see how much space he took up. Hmmmm. Quite a lot, it seems.

Still, I had confidence in the process and I pressed on rolling and folding all my clothes, an extra pair of shoes, some gifts for my neighbors and managed to sneak them all around Herb, who will travel in a plastic bag so as not to scare any TSA agents. I realized that since Herb is hollow, I can get my cosmetics, jewelry and maybe some socks inside him for he ride. I will try that next week as we get closer to our departure.

So, what I learned is this: as long as I increase the depth of my bag by unzipping the expander zipper, Herbert fits just fine. I will be traveling lightly, albeit with a plastic owl in tow.