I'm packing for travel. My suitcase is open, at chest-level on some furniture in the hallway of my parents' house.

Jacki comes in and tells me to hurry up, as it is time to leave. Checking the time, it is right on the hour when we should go, and I'm still not ready. I tell her that I am nearly packed, but I'm cleaning out my ears with my ear-squirting bulb and some warm water. I show her the apparatus, which is like the ear-squirting bulb in real life, but with a long metal straw, with one sharp bend in it, to help getting it over to the ear.

I realize that time is short, so I put away the ear bulb and rush with my suitcase into the game room, where I start putting more clothes into the suitcase. I realize that this is a work-related outing, like a trade show, so I put in a couple of Audio Precision shirts.

I'm going to be staying the whole time with Christians, so I wish I had stashed a secret bottle of whiskey, but I don't have one. Maybe I'll have a chance to pick one up. I do have a bottle of beer, so I throw it in my suitcase among the clothes.

I close the soft suitcase (the brown one I took on the first leg of my JetBlue trip, but not the second leg), but it bulges a lot in the middle. I open it again and try to distribute things better, but then I realize that it has another pocket in the lid, which I had neglected to use, so I move some stuff into there and it closes better.