Do you wash your suitcase before holiday?

So, the preparations for tomorrow’s holiday began. By that I mean washing and scrubbing the suitcases. Well, you can’t pop them in the washing machine so what else are we meant to do?

I do wish I wasn’t the only one in my quest to travel with a gleaming suitcase. But it seems that no one else feels that way.

‘So let me guess, are you going to wash the suitcases today?’ asked my son on the way to school this morning, trying to hide an amused grin. I’m a bit of a joke with my excessive cleaning in the family. I always find new things to wash.

‘No’, I said, trying to sound hurt and blocking his view of my prepared bucket with steaming hot water which reeked of bleach.

‘OK, whatever you say’ he said and headed off to school. I certainly didn’t fool him!

My obsession with clean suitcases started about three years ago. I suddenly realised that the journey they make, from home to the airport to the destination is a terribly dirty one. You’re wheeling, pulling and dragging it through God knows what. Consequently the thought of depositing such a dirty suitcase back on top my wardrobe left me reeling with disgust.

The downside of it is that if I leave the cleaning till the last minute like last year, chances are they won’t dry till you need to pack them. Going on our last holiday, I spent hours keeping the heaters on, trying to dry them out in time for our departure, to no avail. We left with very wet suitcases. The moisture added weight to the suitcase so that I had to pay for an extra baggage; our clothes smelled stale and the gifts I brought were soggy. Have I learned a lesson? No. it’s one day before the holiday and the suitcases are soaking wet, standing obligingly near the heaters.

The upside, on the other hand, is that people love lending me suitcases.

‘Will you be needing a suitcase?’ asked Danny’s grandma, full of hope, on Sunday before producing the dirtiest suitcase she could find. It just returned from New York alongside its owner, her daughter.

‘Yes, take my one’ said the daughter, Eli. She seemed extremely pleased she’d be getting a brand new copy of its original version.

So her suitcase has been in the garden since Sunday. It was scrubbed in several waters with bleach this morning and is now trying to dry out in the kitchen. And to my surprise I realised it was a red colour all along, not black as I thought originally.

Another good point is that I can easily recognise my suitcase while waiting for it at the conveyor belt. The aroma of strong bleach, or any other disinfectant I might have used hits you before you even see it. No need for bows and flags on top of my suitcase! And so what if no one else does it? I travel in style! :)