Family Travel
My Husband Won’t Leave Home Without Long Underwear
Packing for a summer vacation and a love note to my husband
I should be packing, not writing this article.
But, I can’t help myself.
I spent much of yesterday making sure my kids packed shorts, swimsuits, and sunscreen. There were tears as I tossed out extra layers of clothes.
We’re going camping and rafting in Nevada and Arizona. Temperatures will be well into the three-digits.
My Alaskan family doesn’t know what hot means.
(They think 65 degrees is an insult to their humanity.)
This morning, my husband held up his favorite pair of long underwear and announced, “I’m going to bring these, just in case.”
My husband likes to be prepared for EVERYTHING. This is not annoying — he has saved my bacon on more occasions than I can count. He can MacGyver my car when I’ve locked my keys inside for the 100th time. He has the dish disposal set with a remote. He built a duck coop in an afternoon with his eight-year-old daughter. We bought a house with a bad foundation, so he crawled around the most awful muck you can imagine and replaced it.
He’s a good human, too. Once, I was making dinner salad for 200 people, when I nicked my finger and began bleeding on the salad greens. My kitchen looked like a scene from a Steven King novel, with blood and shredded lettuce everywhere. The salad had to be delivered in 30 minutes. I was a mess. I called him, and he came home, disinfected the kitchen, and made all the salad.
Give me any end-of-the-world type scenario, and his knowledge, skills, and kindness would make the situation better.
But, this Alaskan-born and raised man, does not need to bring his winter long-johns; his beloved skivvies.
“But we’re going to be gone almost a month, I’m sure I’ll need them just once,” he pleads with me.
Nope.
And you know who will wind up washing the never-worn skivvies? Me.
His attention is currently on other practicalities: he’s tracking down carabiners, a black light, zip ties, and a mega battery charger for being off the grid. He also made sure we each have outsized water bottles and headlamps.
I can see it now: buried in these supplies is the exact right item we don’t yet know that we need, and this item will save the day in some unforeseen way. My husband will once again be the hero. We’ll cheer him and say something like, “How did you know?! You always have things figured out!”
He’ll smile and accept the accolades. Then he’ll frown, fold his arms, and say, “No one ever listens to me, and I’m the one who has to fix everything.”
Sigh. He’s right. We take him for granted.
He’s my best travel companion.
I guess I’ll stop fussing over the skivvies.
P.S. He’s scared this article will hex him and he won’t be prepared.
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