Do You Roll, Or Do You Fold?

Beauteous and Invincible Reader!

Once upon a time, a lively, dark-haired young genius entered the Miss America Contest. Her figure was dynamite! Her personality was dazzling! And though she did not sing, play the piano, give a recitation, or twirl a baton, her talent was electrifying. For three minutes she demonstrated—item by item— “how to pack a bag.”

I didn’t get to see it, but I heard she just missed being in the top ten. But you would not miss being a finalist, Reader! No. No. You would not have seriously advised spreading your toiletries across the bottom of the bag! You would have won the whole pageant by demonstrating how to edit the total crap outta items that poor young lady called “essential.”

Me? I recently traveled with eleven garment bags, plus one Huntress duffle bag of shoes (the lucky old black-and-white Vivian Westwoods, the cruel black combat boots, etc., etc.,) another Huntress duffle bag of makeup (Chanel foundation, Armani foundation, Mac foundation, Elf foun…