Packing is an extract taken from the novel ‘Three Men in a Boat’ written by Jerome K. Jerome. Packing is that part of the story in which the author Jerome along with his two friends Harris and George plan out for the boat journey and start packing for their trip. This story is a humorous part of the novel where the packing turns out to be a hectic work for the author and his friends. The chaos and mess created at the time of packing is the hilarious point of the story.
Jerome, the narrator, is quite confident because he believes that he is the best packer in this world and he has an extraordinary skill for packing. Ultimately, Jerome wants his friends to work under his supervision. But his friends sit and relax and leave all the responsibility on his shoulder. This behaviour of the narrator’s friends irritates him but the narrator continues his packing.
Meanwhile, Harris remembers to pack his shoes and asks Jerome to reopen the bag and make some space for it. Suddenly, Jerome is unsure if he has packed his toothbrush or not. So he reopens the bag just to confirm it. Soon after, George asks Jerome if he has kept his soap but Jerome ignores his question and continues packing the remaining stuff. But he suddenly realizes that he has packed his spectacles and reopens to find them. Ultimately, Jerome finishes his packing at 10:05 p.m. and takes a sigh of relief.
Now, George and Harris take the command to pack the food stuff and they claim that they can pack these items in a better way and consume less time. But they also fall in a similar situation when Harris squashed the tomatoes and George walks on butter. Further, they spread salt on all the food items and end up making a mess. After all this messy state, they finally try to put all the food items in a systematic way.
To their surprise, enters their pet, Montmorency. He makes the state more messy by creating nuisance. He sits on the stuff which was to be packed and puts his legs into the jam. Finally after much chaos the packing got over at almost 1:00 A.M. and they went to their beds. They mutually decide to wake up at 6:30 A.M. and head towards the journey on the boat.