15/3/15

Dear Diary,

Another early start as I have a travel day ahead of me to get back to Melbourne. Out to the airport in plenty of time and queue to check in. I’m travelling with hand luggage only but I wouldn't exactly say I’m traveling light. It hasn't been a problem for me so far on any of the previous flights and nobody has even asked to check the weight of my luggage. This changes today. I notice that two out of the three tellers are getting everyone to weigh their hand luggage and charging them for storing them in the hold if they are too heavy. I start sweating. I know my bags are well over the new 7kilo limit for hand luggage but even with the old 10kilo limit, which was in place when I booked my tickets, I’m still going to be over the limit. My one-in-three chance of getting away with it comes up trumps as the girl who is not weighing people bags called me forward.

“Morning Sir. If I could just see your passport and pop your bags up on the scale for me.”

“Ummm, it’s just hand luggage for me today. Thanks though.”

“If you could pop them on the scale for me anyway Sir. Thank you.”

“Ohhhhh .... OK”

Oh no. this is going to be bad. I place my two items of hand luggage on the scale ... 13.3 kilos.

I smile at her blandly hoping to dodge the $50 charge for hold luggage and jovially say to her “That's all right, eh? Not bad. So which gate do I go to?”

No luck though and she informs me that my luggage is too heavy as it is over the 7kilo limit. I inform her that I get much more allowance than that because I booked my flights ages ago. She checks her computer and informs me that I do indeed have additional weight allowance of 10kilos but I am still over the limit by 3kilos and will still have to charge me the $50 to put one of them in the hold. In a last ditch effort to dodge the bullet I squeak out that it seems a bit unfair because I have a big heavy jacket from “Cat Cafe Melbourne” that probably weighs 3 kilos on its own and if I just happened to be wearing it when I came up to the counter we wouldn't be having this problem. She politely informs me that I can go away, adjust my baggage and then come back to complete check in when I get the weight adjusted.

It’s clear that what she is saying to me is that, if it’s on your body it doesn't count towards the weight of your luggage. I resist the urge to point out the complete lack of logic this situation holds. If the point of limiting people hand luggage weight allowance (and charge them for storing it in the hold) is the keep the weight of the plane down and therefore use less fuel thereby saving money, then just redistributing the weight to carrying it on your own body does not solve this issue at all as I’m still carrying the same amount of weight onto the plane. But I thank her and set off to do exactly that.

Finding a quiet corner of the airport I dig out the “Cat Cafe Melbourne” jacket. It’s big, bulky, super warm and not as heavy as I thought. Be lucky if its half a kilo on its own. This is going to be interesting. I eat the sandwiches I was saving for my lunch and discover a bottle of pre mixed cola and rum that I’d forgotten about. It would have been confiscated from me at airport security anyway so, waste not want not, I down that baby in one. How much does 600 millimetres weigh? not enough. I need to keep adjusting. Thankfully the jacket has big deep pockets so in goes the camera, the charger for the camera, the charger for the laptop, electric razor, mp3 player, headphones and anything else that I can fit in. That's gotta be more than 3 kilos but I don't want to get back up the counter and still be over so I look at what I can do about the clothing in my bag. There's really nothing I can do to reduce the amount of clothes I have unless I want to dump some dirty undies (tempting, but I might need them later in the trip). I’m wearing my pin stripe trousers but if I change into my pin stripe jeans I could probably exchange some weight there ... or, what if I just put the jeans on over the top of my trousers? I don’t know if the cola/alcohol drink I downed a few minutes ago had anything to do with it but I thought “Hell yeah. that's a genius idea.” And then I’m doing it, putting on jeans over my trousers in a quiet corner of Hobart airport.

That's gotta be enough so I head on up to the counter again and go through the check in rigmarole with a different lady this time. Bags on the scale ... 8.3kilos !!! Ya dancer!!!

“Ohhh, you’re a little over the weight limit there Sir. But you’re welcome to go away and adjust your items if you like.”

It's a roasting hot day, I’m wearing a massive jacket with pockets loaded to the brim with electrical gear, I look like a slightly fatter version of the Michelin Man, I’m slightly drunk and am wearing two pairs of trousers and all I can think is ‘Don’t do this to me Tasmania. Don’t make me hate you. I’ve just fallen in love with you.’ when the previous check in lady walks by and explains to the new girl that my luggage limit is actually 10kilos.

Smiling widely and sweating profusely, I take my boarding card, head over to security (where I put the jacket and all my electricals back in the bag they came out of, thus completing the circle of pointlessness) and by the time I get through to the other side I’m desperate for the toilet as all that cola/alcohol has gone straight through me. I’m bursting and desperate and there is an awful moment of near disaster as I forgot that I was actually wearing two pairs of trousers but, thankfully, I managed to hold it all together.

I was still a bit happy and tipsy when the flight was boarded in Hobart but sober and grumpy when it landed in Melbourne. Managed to catch the Ireland V. Pakistan game (nice try Ireland. Quality tournament from you.) and Myles brought in pizza when he finished work to round out a pretty good day.