Complex Numbers

Baggage

I'm pretty damn possessive of my possessions.

PROMPT September 28th

If you were forced to eliminate every physical possession from your life with the exception of what could fit into a single backpack, what would you put in it?

1) My laptop, its power cord, mouse, mousepad. Can't live without these things. Why do I have a mouse when I have a laptop? Because I can't stand using the damn trackpad, and besides, how can I game with the trackpad?

2) A metric assload of $100 bills so I can buy more stuff. No, I do not consider this cheating. Money is a possession, and while most of it's just numbers on some bank's balance sheet, I can convert it to a physical possession during business hours.

3) A .45 caliber handgun for when I find the sonofabitch who "forced" me to give up the rest of my possessions, which include somewhat valuable houses that won't fit into any backpack I've ever heard of. I mean, I'm not a violent person, but that could change in the above scenario.

I guess that last one is kind of cheating because I don't currently own a .45, but that's the first thing I'd buy with some of the money.

4) My passport so I can leave the country after retiring the person from (3).

Seriously, though, the only plausible scenario wherein I could see this sort of thing happening would be an imminent natural disaster, like a hurricane or tornado. We don't get many of either in the Virginia Piedmont, but it happens. It's rare enough that I haven't been arsed to put together a dedicated bug-out bag, which is really something I should work on doing, you know, just in case.

Wouldn't really need the cash, because of cards and such, but the laptop is truly essential. And no, there wouldn't actually be a gun involved unless the reason was a zombie invasion, which happens even less often than hurricanes or tornadoes. The passport is for real, though, because it would suck to lose everything and also not have a means to leave the country if I have to. My wallet would go in there, too, except that it's probably in my pocket. Same with my Android.

Unless civilization has completely collapsed, I wouldn't even bother with toiletries or clothing or whatever -- those things are readily available, though I'd miss a few of my T-shirts. If civilization has completely collapsed, though, not much use for the laptop or smartphone, either. And why would anyone assume I'd survive such an event? I'm not the survivalist type. And without a functioning CPAP, I'm not long for the world anyway.

If the point of this exercise is to get us to think about what physical possessions are truly essential in our lives, I guess what that comes down to for me is: money. It's just so damn versatile.

But I do like the laptop.