Great Stories of Humor - Packing - Jerome K. Jerome (Abridged and Simplified)

Great Stories of Humor - Packing - Jerome K. Jerome 

(Abridged and Simplified)

On Thursday the three youths, George Harris and Jerome decided to go on the river. They made a list of things they should take on the trip. The next day they met in the evening to do the packing. They had a big gladstone bag for the clothes. 

For the victuals and cooking utensils they bought a couple of hampers. They heaped everything in the middle of the floor and looking at the file, almost collapsed.

I said I'd pack.

                               

I rather pride myself on my packing. 

Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about that any other person living. (It surprises me myself, sometimes, how many subjects there are that I have mastered). 

I impressed the fact upon George and Harris and told them that it would be better for them to leave the whole matter entirely to me. They accepted the suggestion. There was something unusual about the readiness with which they accepted the offer. 

George began smoking his pipe. He spread himself over the easy-chair, and Harris cocked his legs on the table and lit a cigar.

                                 

This was hardly what I intended. What I had meant, of course, was that I should boss the job and George and Harris should run about doing my commands, I pushing them aside every now and then, ‘Oh, what a fool you are!' 'Here, let me do it'. 

See how it is now finished. Is it not simple enough?' I was so much irritated by their sitting idly and watching me working hard.

                                   

I lived with a man who used to make me mad in that way. He used to loll on the sofa when I was working. He continued to be so for hours together. He, however, remarked that it was such a thrill to him to watch earnest work going on. 

In fact, on seeing the hard work of mine he found life having a new meaning. He said he wondered now how he could have carried on before he met me, never having anybody to look at while they worked.

                                   

Now, I'm not like that. I can't sit still and see another man working hard. I want to get up and supervise, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't refrain from it.

                                    

However, I did not say anything but started the packing. It seemed a longer job than I expected, but I got the bag finished at last, and I sat on it, and strapped it.

                                    

Harris pointed out that the boots were lying outside. That was just like Harris. He never gave any warning in time and, what was worse, George was putting on a mischievous smile. That senseless laugh of his made me so angry. It was a stupid and sensible laugh. That made me so wild.

                                    

I opened the bag and put the boots in. It was only then that I doubted if I had packed my tooth - brush.

                                    

My tooth - brush is a thing that haunts me when I'm travelling, and makes my life a misery. I dream that I haven't packed it, and wake up with a cold perspiration, and get out of bed and hunt for it. In the morning I put it in before using it. 

So I unpack again and it is always the last thing to come out. Again I forget the brush while repacking and carry it in my handkerchief to the railway station. So, with such a deal of anxiety, I ransacked the bag to see if the tooth - brush was there. 

All the wretched articles were taken out and there was perfect disorder. It resembled the shapeless chaos before God created the universe. I took out my friends' tooth - brushes all right. But I couldn't find my own. At last it was inside a boot. I repacked once more.

                                       

When I had finished repacking, George asked me if the soap was in. I was angry and said that I didn't care whether the soap was in or not. I shut up the bag violently and strapped it and found that I had packed my tobacco pouch in it, and had to reopen the whole luggage once more. There was only twelve hours for us to start. So I agreed to my friend's taking over the packing.

                                       

They began in perfect ease and self-confidence. They hoped to show me how to do the work of packing. I quickly waited and watched. I knew that they were very poor at packing yet I made no comment. I looked at the piles of plates and cups, and kettles, and bottles and jars, and pies, and stoves, and cakes and tomatoes, etc.; and felt that the thing would soon become excited.

                                        

It did. They began by breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. They did that just to show you what they could do, and to get you interested. Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed. It had to be taken out with a teaspoon.

                                        

As for George, he trod on the butter. I watched it keenly but quietly. I did not say a word. But my look annoyed them most. It expressed my feelings so eloquently. They were thoroughly upset. They stepped on things, and put them behind them and could not find them when they wanted them., they packed the pies at the bottom and put heavy things on top, and smashed the pies in.

                                       

Salt was thrown on everything. The one-and-two pence worth of butter gave them the greatest difficulty. After George had got it off his slipper they tried to put it in the kettle. It would not go in and what was in the kettle would not come out. In the excitement the butter was placed on a chair. Harris sat on it, and it struck to him. They searched for it all over the room.

                                        

I'll take my oath I put it down on that chair', said George, staring at the empty seat.

                                       

‘I saw you do it myself,. Not a minute ago', said Harris.

                                     

Then they started round the room again looking for it; and then they met again in the centre and stared at one another 'Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of', said George. no

                                     

"So mysterious!", said Harris.

                                      

Then George got round at the back of Harris and saw it. 'Why, here is all the time, he exclaimed indignantly.

                                     

'Where?' cried Harris, spinning round.

     

Stand still, can't you?' roared George, flying after him. And so they got it off, packed in the teapot.

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