An amusing look by Agatha Christie on packing with her husband Max for their first archaeological journey together in Come, Tell Me How You Live:
Packing!
There are several schools of thought as to packing. There are the people who begin packing at anything from a week or a fortnight beforehand. There are the people who throw a few things together half an hour before departure. There are the careful packers, insatiable for tissue paper! There are those who scorn tissue paper and just throw the things in and hope for the best! There are the packers who leave practically everything that they want behind! And there are the packers who take immense quantities of things that they will never need!
One thing can safely be said about an archaeological packing. It consists mainly of books. What books to take, what books can be taken, what books there are room for, what books can (with agony!) be left behind. I am firmly convinced that all
archaeologists pack in the following manner: They decide on the maximum number of suitcases that a long suffering Wagon Lit Company will permit them to take. They then fill these suitcases to the brim with books. They then, reluctantly, take out a few books, and fill in the space thus obtained with shirt, pyjamas, socks, etc.
Looking into Max's room, I am under the impression that the whole cubic space is filled with books! Through a chink in the books I catch sight of Max's worried face.
'Do you think,' he asks, 'that I shall have room for all these?'
The answer is so obviously in the negative that it seems sheer cruelty to say it.
