Clothes I Will Be Wearing On The Flight Home For Thanksgiving In Order To Avoid Checking A Bag

Dirty realist literature (bagel receipt)

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  • One pair shoes
  • Two pair socks
  • Running tights
  • Blue jeans
  • Nicer pants worn over the top of other pants or on head
  • Two undershirts
  • One pair underwear
  • Green novel-tee: cartoon of cute dinosaur with the epitaph “If I were still alive, I’d eat your fuckin’ face.”
  • Two pair underwear inside armpits
  • Button-up
  • Sweater
  • Sweater tied around neck like a keffiyeh
  • Glasses
  • Belt in pants on head
  • Monocle (in case someone throws together a costume party last-minute)
  • Sunglasses
  • Headphones
  • Earmuffs
  • Second monocle (this is my reading monocle)
  • MacBook charger tied in a knot and worn as a necklace
  • Running shoes worn as mittens over hands
  • List of relatives I can’t talk about politics with, but can talk about the goddamn self-destructing Bears with, tucked into crevice behind knee
  • Novelty mustache, so that the person sitting next to me gets creeped out and doesn’t try to start a conversation
  • Recipe I want to try, bobby-pinned to second monocle

 Inside my Pockets:

  • Cell phone
  • Toothbrush
  • Wallet
  • Fave holiday DVDs: Home Alone, Love Actually, How the Grinch Stole Christmas 2: Revenge of Cindy Lou Who
  • iPod queued to “I See a Darkness” and “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”
  • Two pens
  • Utility spork (combo spoon-fork)
  • Utility fife (combo fork-fife)
  • Smallish notebook
  • Go lean super crunch — a crunch so super your teeth explode — granola bar
  • Folded up newspaper
  • Dirty realist literature (bagel receipt)
  • Motivational paperback bought in airport: It’s Time to Get It Together, by Healthy-Looking Californian Dude Who Must Have Hella Skeletons in His Closet, MD
  • Boarding pass

This allows my carry-on to hold my laptop, holiday socks, and very necessary and miscellaneous Thanksgiving tchotchkes, trinkets, doodads, whoosie-whatsits, electric gismos, whatchamacallits, doohickeys, thingamabobs, and inhaler.

And just like that, I’m homeward bound. TC Mark