Chapter Five
Al Gets His Checkboxes Checked
April 30, 2009—Departure: I always forget how much work packing is. One month of stuff for two people, plus bikes and gear, had to be crammed into a Toyota Echo. We pretty much spent all of yesterday packing.
Packing is crucial. I didn’t want to get to our first campsite and realize that we’d forgotten the tent poles, for example, especially since that actually happened on a childhood family camping trip. Right after my mom said “Well, I guess you could call us experienced campers now,” we looked in the tent bag and came up empty. As a result, the “experienced campers” slept in a saggy umbrella tent tied to a tree branch.
Because of experiences like that, my life is ruled by checklists, man’s best invention. I have checklists for fishing, surfing, biking, piano gigs, skiing, changing the oil, and just going to town (keys, wallet, cell phone, change). This trip required going through the bike ride checklist, the camping checklist, the long-trip checklist, and the leaving-the-house-for-a-trip checklist (water off, heat off, fridge closed).
[If you’re not a checklist enthusiast, please skip the next paragraph.]
As a true checklist connoisseur, I know that there are three types of checklists with subtle but important differences: (1) to do lists, (2) shopping lists, and (3) true checklists. Want to remember to pay your bills every month? Use the to do list. Want to remember what to pick up at the store? Use the shopping list. Don’t want to take a bike ride without your helmet? Use a true checklist before you leave. I’ve now automated my lists by getting checklist apps for my android device, and for those three categories of lists, I use Remember the Milk (which is actually not good for remembering the milk), OI Shopping list, and List Master Pro, respectively.
There are lots of ways to abuse a checklist. One is to forget to use it. Another is to, for example, check off “Water Bottle,” but only put the water bottle near but not on your bike. The third is to go through the list absent-mindedly, saying “Got it” when you don’t got it.
There are some people who think that checklists are for sissies. They’re the ones saying “Oh, Jeez, did I leave the oven on?”
In addition to going through the checklists, and in true tightwad fashion, I totaled up the cash in our pockets so that I could, upon our return, figure out exactly how much this trip cost.
Everything fit in our tiny, fuel-efficient 2002 Echo, and (trumpets sounding) off we went.
An uneventful eight hours, and two traffic jams later we arrived in the Bay Area. Most importantly, we discovered that the napinator works great. I'd patent it, but then I'd have to deal with the whiplash liability claims.
We arrived at the Moraga home of our good friends, Ted and Britta, and Britta cooked a fantastic dinner. Then we went to a rave.