“Sleeping bag,” the assistant says as he marches over. “This is vital.”
“I’ll be sleeping in a bed.”
“But you need to have a sleeping bag. There will be times when you can’t get accommodation and have to rough it.”
We narrow our eyes as we stare at him. “Define roughing it,” Elliot replies.
“You know, have to sleep in the woods or in a train station or something.”
Train station . . . seriously?
“Do you sell mini mattresses, something that folds up like the towel?” I ask.
The salesman throws his head back and laughs out loud. “You’re hilarious, man.”
It wasn’t a joke.
“We’ll take a sleeping bag. This kind here.” Elliot taps the display.
“Yellow or black?”
“Are you color blind?” I stare at him deadpan. “The fuck is wrong with you? Nobody wants a yellow sleeping bag.”
The assistant begins to take our things to the cashier station. He piles all our purchases onto the counter. “Will that be all?”
“Yes.”
He begins to ring them up.
Elliot eyes the pile of things on the counter, and I can see something running through his mind.
“What?” I ask.
“How is all that going to fit into that pissant bag?”
Hmm, he does have a point.
“I mean, where do your clothes go?”
“That’s a very good question,” I mutter.
“You travel light,” the salesman says.
“How light?” I frown.
“Just the essentials, like one or two pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, like three T-shirts, and one jumper. The shoes you are wearing.”
I stare at him as horror begins to fuck me up the ass . . . “I can’t . . .”
“You can,” he says.
My eyes meet Elliot, and he shrugs. “I don’t know?”
How the hell can you live in five things?
Five hours later
“What fucking bullshit is this?” I cry.
Elliot scratches his head, completely perplexed. “We shouldn’t have taken it out of the case.”
“Oh. Great idea, Einstein,” I bark. “Because finding this out in a crowded hostel would be so much fucking better.”
“I just don’t get it.” Elliot spins the directions around as he reads them. “It doesn’t say anything here about this. Is there a button or something you push?”
I search and search. “There is no button, and there is definitely no way this is happening.”
“Jameson went camping. He will know.” Elliot calls the boys while I struggle some more.
“Hey.” I hear Jameson’s voice.
“Hi there,” says Tristan.
“We’re in all sorts here,” Elliot replies as he sets his phone up so they can see us. “I think the guy in the store pranked us.”
“What’s happening?” Jameson asks.
“How is this”—I hold up the giant, huge-ass sleeping bag—“supposed to fit into this”—I hold up the tiny sleeping bag cover. I begin to try to stuff it in again.