Mom Gets Petty Revenge By Making Her Family Pack For Themselves, Ends Up Going Viral

In any household (as in most of the real world), there will be certain tasks that go overlooked but are still ultimately vital. As anyone who has just started living on their own can attest to, groceries don’t buy themselves, the trash doesn’t take itself out and most cleaning has to be done by a human being.

A mom shared her hilarious bit of pettiness after allowing her family to all pack their own bags before a trip. She then “sold” the items they forgot back to them to teach a valuable lesson in not taking people for granted. We got in touch with her to learn more.

Bored Panda got in touch with the mom who made the video and she was kind enough to share some more details with us. We wanted to know how her plan worked out in the long run. "It worked out pretty well! I got about 3 hours (according to a wonderful commenter that did the math for me) and my husband stood strong and ended up with a sunburn after refusing to take his rash guard or sunscreen."

"I think a lot of mom's related to the video because the mental load we carry is heavy and often get met with criticism when just trying to make sure everyone is comfortable. Vacation can sometimes feel more like a chore than fun and this was a light hearted way to show a little bit of what we do. My family had a blast with this, and as with most things, turned into something we laughed about the whole trip! Honestly it was great for me too cause it allowed me to point out things without sounding like I was nagging at them."

Imagine for a moment that your family is about to embark on a grand adventure, an exciting road trip, a week at the beach, or perhaps that long-awaited overseas vacation. There’s sandcastle anticipation in the air, sunscreen perfumes the living room, and everyone’s buzzing with a mix of excitement and mild panic. Meanwhile, one person, usually Mom or the wife, magically becomes the designated “packing maestro.”

Why does this happen? First, there’s the unspoken assumption that, “Hey, someone has to think of everything!” And since Mom or the wife has probably already orchestrated school lunches, dentist appointments, soccer practices, and surprise birthday parties, it seems only natural that she’s also the keeper of toothbrushes, travel pillows, and the ever-elusive universal adapter. These are, after all, some of the more common “domestic” tasks that moms and wives are just assumed to be in charge of. Once people expect her to do these tasks, they might even get frustrated when something goes missing, even if it’s not the mom’s job to keep track.

She’s got the mental spreadsheet etched in her brain, complete with contingency plans for “what if we lose Dad’s sunglasses” and “make sure the kids each have two extra pairs of socks.” This is also the sort of skill that the more one does, the better they get at knowing what might be useful in the future. A skilled packer can look at an itinerary and probably guess exactly how many sets of underwear to bring.

Next comes the art of Multitasking 2.0. While the rest of the family is debating what snacks to pack for the car ride or who gets to pick the playlist, she’s calmly folding outfits, rolling swimsuits to save space, and color-coding everyone’s clothing into labeled packing cubes. Until you’ve done this, you probably can’t understand just how hard it is to make a seemingly small handful of items fit into a suitcase or bag.

Yet, for all this behind-the-scenes wizardry, the job of primary (and often only) packer tends to go under-appreciated. The family sees the suitcase zip shut and never quite registers that it took ten different Tetris techniques to make Dad’s giant hiking boots fit alongside the kids’ life jackets. When every shirt emerges unwrinkled on the other side, it’s as if suitcases have suddenly discovered wrinkle-resistant fabric all by themselves.

This is, in general, a bigger issue where “domestic” work ends up undervalued. Even worse, the family sees the pile of suitcases and so on and immediately notices their size and not their utility to the trip, so they end up “accusing” the mom of being an overpacker. After all, there is a chance that the families “main” interaction with the suitcases and bags is the act of hauling them around, where, naturally, they might get annoyed over how many “heavy” things they have to carry. They probably blame her, despite the fact that these “things” are, in reality, their clothes and other useful items.

The real pinch? Once the trip is underway, her incredible organizational feats become invisible. At breakfast, nobody marvels at the perfect rotation of pajamas, swimsuits, and sight-seeing outfits. On the plane, no one thanks her for slotting everyone’s hand sanitizer and phone chargers into exactly the right corner of the carry-on. When a stranger asks how the family manages to squeak all those souvenirs back home, she smiles, but the applause is quietly stowed away, like everything else she packs. People simply do not tend to notice when things go right.

This is a large part of why this mom’s plan was, ultimately, so ingenious. It shifts the families focus onto what they forgot to bring. Then, like a magician, she shows that she already thought of it and they can simply buy this item. Hopefully, this sort of planning can, in the future, help people make better packing decisions, or, at the very least, make them appreciate what their mom does for them. Doing so much extra without being at all appreciated for it is a surefire recipe for resentment.