Death to Rummaging

I am in the market for a new bag. Nothing special, just a simple duffel bag for everyday use. The one specific feature I want is an optic yellow inner lining.

This is the bag I use today.



It isn't bad. It is a Samsonite, the fabric is tough, the zipper works fine. But the inside of the bag can get as dark as the belly-of-a-whale, especially indoors. Finding my wallet, blackberry, goggles or even a dark coloured t-shirt involves a fair bit of rummaging, rather than just spotting.

This is the bag my children use.



It is clearly better than mine. The cheerful optic yellow inner lining makes it easy to spot stuff inside the bag. No rummaging required. I bought it years ago in the USA, without realizing its virtues. I want another bag like this.

However, this is surprisingly hard to find. I looked around the shop at the club. All the bags on display had black inners, even if they had florescent colours on the outside, sort of the wrong way around. I don't know how representative the shop at the club is, but clearly, brightly coloured inner linings for kit bags are not an industry standard.

The same shop sells tennis balls. The tennis balls are all optic yellow, which is mildly irritating, because the tennis balls are optic yellow for exactly the same reason the inside of the kit bags ought to be optic yellow, but are not.

Why has the better-product-wins logic played out so neatly with tennis balls, but not with kit bag linings? It might be because luggage is more about fashion than function, whereas tennis balls are entirely about function. Though, I don't quite buy that; generally, good function is fashionable. It could be because of the institutional unity of tennis. Once the grand slams decide yellow balls are better, the entire tennis world follows their lead. There is no similar grand slam-like authority for luggage, identifying and modelling the better products.

For whatever reason, it seems I can't buy the kit bag I want even on the internet. Shopping websites show luggage outsides, but don't specify the colour of the inner lining. Looks like I will be rummaging around for my wallet in the belly-of-a-whale for a while longer.