Trimming excesses

published 25 May 2007

BERLIN—Today is my last working day here. I fly home this weekend, after having been “on exile” for eight weeks.

I’m making sure my check-in luggage is down to 20 kg. and my hand luggage —including my reliable, overworked and rather heavy secondhand laptop—to 12 kg. I try not to think this will be a problem, though. My acquisitions from this trip have been immense, but aside from the thick pile of handouts that are not otherwise downloadable in the same concise form from the Web, my gains have mostly been intangible.

I despise the term “excess baggage.” It has only evoked bad memories since late March when I left the Philippines. Oh, heck, let me tell you the story.

I came to the airport feeling like a zombie. I had just shut my suitcase a few hours before. I had not had a wink of sleep. I had been making last-minute preparations, delegating tasks, making payment schedules, writing in advance, doing a lot of things yet still feeling I was not doing enough. Then, just before I was ready to grab some breakfast, I realized I was running late.

I was also in a daze. I still couldn’t believe I was leaving—not for a mere week and definitely not for a vacation. I was wondering how I would manage being on my own for an extended period of time. I’d never been away from the children that long.

At the counter, I was told that my luggage had 7 excess kilos, and that I should take out some items, else I had to pay 30 euros per kilo. What could I do? My family had driven off and so I could not anymore unload my things into the car. I did not have 210 freaking euros. When I converted the amount to pesos, I almost fainted.

I thought it was best to bargain, okay, plead with this guy from the counter. He was in a blue long-sleeved shirt but there was no way I could tell whether he was an employee of KLM or of the airport itself. I exaggerated a bit and uttered something about representing the country (actually my newspaper) to an international conference (actually a training grant). Imagine my surprise when, without much persuasion from me, he relented. He said he could bring the penalty down to a hundred US dollars. But there was a catch, he said. He would not be able to give me an official receipt.

In fact, he added, why don’t I meet him at a corner in five minutes and simply insert the hundred dollars into my passport?

I needed a minute to let his words sink. The nerve!

So I fished out a worn one dollar bill (a send-off token from my father-in-law, a lucky charm, he said) from my wallet and inserted it into the passport. I also made sure that my ID—where the word “press” figured prominently—could be seen. I handed the passport to Mr. Blue and waited for his reaction. He started pointing out that he asked for a hundred dollars, not one dollar, but I told him I had transferred some kilos into my other bag and put on layers of sweaters so in effect wasn’t in excess anymore. I pointed to my press card—then, perhaps realizing what I could do, he stopped talking and simply walked away, shaking his head.

I was stupefied at the audacity, too much that I totally forgot to note his name. Sayang.

I felt bad all through the flight. The first—and, it turns out, the only—unsavory experience I ever had in this trip took place in my home country.

***

Now I am two months wiser having learned a few valuable lessons:

1. Forewarned is forearmed. Take advantage of the information available on the Internet. I should have downloaded information on baggage allowance from the airline’s Web site. I could have packed my stuff aware of my limits. And, if anybody dared challenged me, I should have had the printout handy, ready to shove it down his throat.

2. Planning is key. Pasalubong shopping is always a challenge to one’s budgetary prowess, especially when one is under a modest stipend from German taxpayers. You must have a list of people you’d like to remember. Never cram, because cramming always causes you to act without much deliberation. Streamlined and light is better than bulky and heavy.

3. Classify items based on importance and dispensability. Do I really need this? Is it just nice to carry around? Is this absolutely necessary or can I do without this? When faced with a choice, it is easy to get rid of items because you already know which ones to prioritize.

4. If you are in control, act like it. Some people take advantage of those who appear naïve or lost (as I probably did on that March day.) Stand straight, walk confidently, establish eye contact and speak in a modulated voice. Then other people will know that you are a nice lady but that they can’t mess with you. Or else.

When you go about with just essentials, you feel light, and you are confident there would be no hitches. In fact, you are so secure that on your last night in that foreign city, you can choose to go clubbing with your classmates—who were, by the way, strangers eight weeks ago but who are now your friends, having gone past color, food preferences and accent barriers.

Now I’m ready to fly again—and I’m not only speaking literally.