I've been a business traveler for almost 20 years now. Sales is my game and I've played this game everywhere. In the thousand or so trips I've embarked upon, I've seen all manner of delay, inconvenience, mix -up and bone-head mistake. A variety of of which happen to be my fault. Nonetheless, it wasn't until I took a family trip this previous summer that I realized how much I'd been missing out on one piece of travel equipment I'd never used or given very much thought to.

When you're a salesman like I am, an world-wide salesman at that, you quickly get right into a travel pattern. Once you've settled into your regimen, things rarely change. You know what clothes you require, you always possess the correct personal items, you already know the moment you walk into a hotel room what kind of night it's likely to be, etc. Alas, traveling along with your kin is a completely different matter. In comparison, it's chaos! You're no longer packing for one. You genuinely have to consider other people, especially the children. The small amount of that personal item is no longer enough to share with everybody. This, I can tell you from practical experience, can bring about disaster.

Take as an example the trip my family took to San Diego this summer. San Diego is approximately 3000 miles away from my home, not an enormous distance for somebody who's been all around the globe. The participants of the journey involved my family of 4: myself, my spouse, my 14 year old daughter and 8 year old son. We were headed to San Diego for my nephew's marriage. However, my principal mistake took place hours before we actually left. I, being the great father that I am, accepted when my son asked if he could help me pack. After a handful of minutes of education on the best strategy to store the garments in the suitcase, followed by several minutes of trial and error and strict supervision, my son had it down. I proceeded to give him all the clothes I would need, which includes the suit I was to don. I then gathered the relevant toiletries and other personal items for the trip. A brief while later we were packed into the van and on our way to the airport. Unfortunately for me, my son's packing job of my sports coat and slacks fell well short of the methods I had shown him only a short while before. This was my mistake, of course. I failed to double check things. Needless to say, once we got to Our destination, the suit was a mess, but I didn't realize it until approximately an hour before we were to head to the wedding location. As a business traveler, I may well have just gone to the nearest retail outlet and bought a new suit and just expensed it. But I'm a bit tighter with my own money. Upon seeing the suit, my wife recommended I try using the hand held garment steamer she'd brought with her. I didn't even know we owned this thing. Cynical, but devoid of much alternative, I tried the steamer on my suit. It took some time, but I was able to renew the suit to an acceptable level. We made it to the ceremony with loads of time and no one was the wiser.

Since that day, I've packed that steamer with me on every business trip. I believe I've used it on every trip as well. No more ironing or awaiting the hotel to handle my attire. I guess an ancient canine can learn new tricks.