As useful as a chocolate teapot…

I think that there must have been a rush of blood to my head.

In rather a rash moment I’ve decided that I will bite the bullet and head to Australia for a couple of weeks.

The call to see my old mate for his sixtieth birthday, catch up with my Australian friend for a couple of weeks, as well as do something enjoyable prior to my impending doom (I’m sure there will be more about that later) was simply too strong – despite the cost.

But there’s one thing I needed to buy before leaving these shores for foreign climes: a suitcase.

I used to have suitcases, good quality suitcases, but when you down-size and move overseas, things seem to disappear. Well, they do for me, anyway. The things I’ve looked for in the unfulfilled belief that I still own them are far too many to mention. But suitcases are certainly amongst them.

I therefore needed to find somewhere local that sold suitcases. I looked online and found a shop in Faro that seemed to offer what I was after, so I had a look at their website and… bloody hell! €1000 for a suitcase?! Actually, prices ranged from €232 to €1000, but you get the gist – they were bloody expensive. I might only use the thing once, so I didn’t want to pay that.

I carried on looking online, but couldn’t find much that was available in the local area, which forced me to turn to that old favourite, Amazon.

I scoured through suitcase after suitcase, keeping several criteria in mind: light in weight, a decent price, bright in colour – yes, there´s nothing worse than standing by the baggage reclaim carousel and picking up black bag after black bag because they all look like yours.

Eventually I found what I was after: a three-case set, bright yellow, for €152 – not bad, not bad at all.

And so, I made the purchase.

The system told me that I could expect to receive my new acquisition on Wednesday, in six days’ time. To make sure it really was going to happen, I tracked it on the courier’s website each day. That was the most excitement I’ve had in years!

I watched my purchase make its way around Poland, across Germany, then reappear in Portugal (presumably having flown), enjoying time in Porto and Lisbon, before heading down to the Algarve to be delivered to me. Fantastic. All was looking good.

On Tuesday, I went out to celebrate.

Well, actually, I went out for a long agreed, but much-postponed beer with Kjetil and didn’t think about the suitcases at all, not until I got home anyway, and found a note in my letterbox telling me that I’d missed the delivery.

Eh? It was only Tuesday! Bollocks! I’d have postponed our drink until Wednesday if I’d known the delivery was coming!

So, what would happen now? Knowing my luck, the suitcases would be returned to sender… Nooooo!!! I’m meant to be flying in a few days!

But I shouldn’t have been such a ‘Doubting Thomas’. My suitcases arrived the very next day, bright and early. Fantastic.

I ripped open the box and pulled out a large suitcase. The others were stored inside, much in the way of Russian Matryoshka dolls. You know the ones I mean: doll inside doll inside doll until the smallest is revealed.

The suitcases were perfect: light, solid and bright yellow. Just what the doctor ordered.

All that was left now was to change the combination on the lock. It was set to 0-0-0 on arrival, so I changed it to my magic number (that I’m not about to reveal here, obviously) and tested it.

Oops. The combination didn’t work.

What the…?

I tried again – no luck…

I tried 0-0-0 – no luck…

Aaaaghh! Nightmare! I had three new suitcases, two of which were locked inside the big one. What was I to do? There was nothing for it. I changed the combination to 0-0-0 and tried it once more. Nada. I changed it to 0-0-1 and tried it again. Zilch. And so it went on.

A fair time later, I reached my magic number. Nothing doing. I carried on. Soon I was ten attempts past my magic number and… Click! The bloody thing opened! Phew! I must have messed up when setting the combination. That will teach me to rush.

So now I have a suitcase and all that’s left to do is pack.

I’m a bit unsettled though. That combination lock is as useful as a… well, I was going to say as useful as a chocolate teapot, but that’s not very original, is it? You get the gist though. It’s as good as useless. It took me fifteen minutes to break into my suitcase. On my travels it will be sitting in various airports for up to seven hours.

Mmmm… I’d better not put anything of value in there then!