Aug092008
Goodbye Old Friend
Filed under stuff by Kim at 4:25 pm on Aug 09 2008
I’m in the midst of a real, true “day off”. That means I’m fiddling around with things around the house I typically neglect entirely like clearing out all the magazines from the bathroom reading depot from the past 2 years. Jack is doing something that involves every old hard drive we have in the house that I don’t even want to know about. The only thing I expect out of today (now that I paid all the bills) is some sushi.
Among these noodly things I am up to, I am finally admitting to myself that it may be the end of the road for my old backpack.
I got this puppy sometime in high school, I believe. Or maybe as I was getting ready to leave for college. Those that know can do the math; this is an old danged bag, as bags go. It’s carried every textbook, probably hundreds of pens, it’s been rifled by thieves and traveled to far-flung locales full of LARP costumes. In recent years, it’s mostly been the perfect overnight bag… so many new and exciting bags have come up to take its place as an everyday tool.
Oh, there’s the Crumpler bag, and several inevitable Timbuk2 bags, a new Sherpani for smaller backpack needs, and something else that comes along just about every month to make me consider carving more space for my extensive bag army.
The really sad thing is the way I’m losing it. Every single part of this bag has the same structural integrity it had when it was first gifted to me (I doubt I would have ever picked purple on my own. I am sure this was a mom or grandma purchase.) in nineteen-ninety whatever. It’s the lining. It’s gone… evil. I started noticing everything I put inside would come out covered with flakes of ick. Eventually I rubbed my two brain cells together and found out that the insides of this bag had a life-span, and it was over. I’ve tried vacuuming it out; rubbing at the insides with an old sock to flake it all off myself, but the gumminess won’t be budged unless I put clothes or books in there and carry the damn thing around. It just seems like other than this… the bag could go on and on.
Cleanup attempts having failed, I’m trying to get used to the idea that maybe 15 years or so is good enough. I even called LL Bean.
Kim: Hi. I am calling about your lifetime warranty on backpacks.
Hapless LL Bean Employee: Sure! How can I help you! (I am sure she was thinking that I’d cut through it with a chainsaw, or something else more reasonable and outdoorsy.)
Kim: See, I have had my backpack for about 15 years.
HLBE: I see. (Immediate reduction in chipperness.)
Kim: I am like a walking advertisement for your lifetime warranty! And your bags!
HLBE: Uh-huh… what can I do for you?
Kim: See, the lining’s sort of… gooping on everything I put in there.
HLBE: Really.
Kim: Do you think if I sent it back they could fix it?
HLBE: (Gently, like a nurse in a movie assigned to the hard cases.) You know, some things, well, they are useful for a long time, and then you get a new one.
Kim: Oh. Okay. Um… I have definitely gotten my money’s worth, that’s for sure. I love your product!
HLBE: …
Kim: I’d spend that money all over again.
HLBE: …
Kim: Maybe I’ll go do that instead of sending it back.
HLBE: Great! Is there anything else I can help you with?
Kim: Um, no. No, there isn’t.
I was a little crestfallen, I admit. I did think that LL Bean was a magical land in New England where magically you had a lifelong backpack and perhaps you mailed it there and it arrived by talking sled dog at some kind of LL Santa workshop where gnomes carefully & with expert hands re-sewed your backpack with mithril thread or whatever is used to keep these things together. I know, I know. The place these backpacks are actually made is probably far less pleasant.
Oh, and for the record, I don’t think they even have a lifetime warranty anymore.
I guess instead I’ll just take off my orange mail tags (placed on there while I was working at the VA Tech library periodical department – European mail all came with these plastic closures.) and place them on a new, non-purple backpack from the Bean. I have been putting this off for a year because I can’t stand to let go. My friend Telf says that we get attached to these things because we’re only children; we didn’t have siblings to bond with. Or siblings that stole our stuff so we couldn’t get so attached. Whatever it is, I need to practice some zen non-attachment. It’s just a bag, right?
1 rdonoghueon 09 Aug 2008 at 7:39 pm
For me, it’s my first Kensington bag. I didn’t even own a laptop at the time, but it was the first convertible satchel I ever saw on the market. It’s beat to crap, and one of the interior linings (non load-bearing) is sealed with duck tape, but that bag has done me yeoman service, and I just can’t bring myself to be rid of it.
That said, I suspect if you’d pushed the matter with LL Bean, to the point of mailing them the bag, I suspect they would have taken care of it. They’ll try to discourage you on the phone, but I doubt they’ll say “no” outright.
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admin Reply:
August 9th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I may yet just mail the bag in with a note. I strongly suspect the best case scenario is still a new bag, and not a repair of this one!
(I am also making this comment to test the threadyness!)
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2 Artslapon 08 Oct 2008 at 10:03 pm
Hey.
I have a copy of “Mental Notes” sitting on my desk awaiting a mailing address.
E-mail me @ cpalstra@audiparramatta.com.au and I’ll send it across.
PS “Remasted and Expanded” Woo-Hoo!
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