New Purchase, New Friends

Much as I hate to contradict the gospel of one of my favourite writers, Douglas Adams was wrong.

The ultimate sympathy/conversation-stimulating travel accoutrement is NOT a towel; it is an enormous, oversized suitcase, such as the one I have just bought.

In the time it took me to walk the two hundred yards from the stall in the marketplace to my office I was stopped twice and got £3 off the price from the suitcasemonger for the story of what I wanted it for (for all of those who needed a "Previously; on The Autoblography..." intro but didn't get one, that's MOVING TO NEW YORK TO MARRY THE LOVE OF MY LIFE).

This suitcase is pretty damned big. It's the sort that could double up as a rudimentary shelter in adverse weather, the sort, if abandoned in the middle of the Amazonian Rainforest with four other hapless souls, you could host survival tactics board meetings in.

It's huge.

Walking away from the stall I carried it for a while and then decided to test the wheels, when an old lady stopped me.

"Where are you going with that?"

So many options.

"My office."

"Oh," she hesitated. "Why on earth do you have a suitcase?"

"I'm moving..." I started.

Fifty yards further on, I bumped into the landlord of the house next to mine who I befriended through mutual DIY assistance last year.

"Are you going home?"

"No, I'm going to New York."

"What, now?"

"Er-"

"Business trip, is it?"

"No-"

"Oh, just wondered if you wanted a lift."

"No, I'm going back to the office."

"With a suitcase?"

"No, I'm moving..."

So you see.
It is currently lurking behind my cubicle divider, towering over the recycling bin like a stray menhir from Stonehenge.