Luggage keeps pilling up and I didn’t even put my clothes in yet!!

Here we are, 3 days before our departure, and as always, we women tend to get ahead of things so I started packing for our holiday trip to Argentina.
Have you ever lived outside your home country? It’s like this:
2 months prior to our arrival, I started to get these emails:
“Could you please bring me a blouse / pant / shoes / boots / wallet / purse / belt that I saw online, is really tiny, and it’s not heavy, I promise” or “I’m dying to have those new sunglasses / watch / key ring / cuff link, but here they’re really expensive, would it bother you if I ordered them and you can, maybe, bring them with you in a small corner of your bag?” or “I want an iPod / headphones / cover case / new laptop / Wii / Stereo system… I’ll pay the custom taxes, but could you please go to the store and bought them for me? They don’t accept international cards”… (To someone else with that story; do I look stupid to you?... ok, don’t answer that) and they add “pretty please?” as if THAT is going to make the difference… come on! You’re asking for a 10 pound favor… didn’t you notice that we have weight restrictions in airplanes now? Where do you want me to put MY clothes? Send them by courier? Pay overweight for my 0.01 pound bathing suit?
What is it with people and decency? Forget about shame... nowadays people just ask and expect that you’ll be OK with them; don’t even think about deny them a favor… let me warn you, families keep grudges; so if you want to be in the white list, you better do whatever it takes to get that stuff down there; and I mean WHATEVER IT TAKES!
It all started with this spectacular idea that today I’ll finish with the packing business, so I dived inside our spare mini-room / closet to get our biggest valise; and I started to put the presents and requests first; big mistake there; because now the bag is full and where am I suppose to put all of our stuff? Is not like I can tell my husband to bring a few things, it’s a 3 week trip! Its summer there, so no coats or heavy clothes, but a girl needs her attire!! shoes, bathing suits, hair products, make-up… options, options, options!
So, yeah… maybe I’m a bit stupid because you should really see my luggage! I look like a walking department store; except for the beauty department (thank god for small favors! or our very nice relative that forgot to ask for a perfume / rejuvenating cream / make-up, etc.).
Anything to be kept away from the family's black list; I don’t want to be poisoned when we get there… and I want nice Christmas presents. So I did the second logical option: I found the other big valise and started dividing the weight between both of them… problem is; both are overweight now; and I’ll probably pay USD 200 to get them to Argentina; USD 500 when we arrive at customs and USD 75 to rent a mini-van to transport them to my father’s house.
In short, next time, don’t even let them know you’re coming! A surprise is much more fun, don’t you think? And you don’t have to worry about requests!... or better yet, change your email address and don’t even tell them… or commit to everything they ask and arrive with your empty hand and tell them you got robbed!
Laugh now, but this is definitely going to happen to you as well, and when it does, don’t say I didn’t warn you.