Packing Panic

Still more than two weeks to go until my vacation starts, and I'm already starting in with the packing panic.

Okay, "panic" may be overstating things a bit, but I do get a little tense when I'm packing for a trip. I soothe my jitters by making lists, and lists of lists. It's what I do.

So I currently have a two-page-long list of things to pack for Cancun. It's organized by container -- things to go in my suitcase, things to go in Penny's suitcase, things to go in carryon, etc. And each item is categorized by its importance, where importance is determined by how big a hassle it would be if the item were forgotten or lost. For example, a comb is a 4 -- it is very easily and cheaply replaced by a quick trip to the resort's grocery store. As items go up in either expense/hassle to replace or necessity, they go up the scale from there, but most items got capped at a level 2. Even clothes (there's a freaking WalMart in downtown Cancun; replacing several days' worth of clothes would be slightly spendy, but perfectly do-able) and my camera. Category 1 is reserved for the stuff that we really can not afford to lose, for one reason or another: our passports, Penny's diabetes supplies, my credit card.

So I was feeling pretty cool about this whole packing thing (you know -- for me) until this morning, when I thought I'd plug the kids' phone into the solar recharger in the car so it could juice up a little on my drive to work. And I couldn't find the cable.

There's the car charger cable that plugs into the cigarette lighter. There's the cable that runs from the tapedeck to the iPhone so I can play music through the car's speakers. There's another cable that I don't even know WHAT it does... but not the cable that plugs into the solar recharger. Which is a proprietary cable and I can't just pick one up at Target. Which I don't think I've ever taken out of the car, so where the hell is it?

Boom. Panic.

Over a freaking cable? That if I can't find it just means I'll have to be a little more careful about device recharging while we're gone, and otherwise means I've wasted most of the $40 I spent on the recharger?

It's possible that I need to. You know. Get a grip. Just a bit.

Deep breath... In... Out...

Okay. I feel better now.

But I'm going to go look under the car seats just one more time.