How trying to find the perfect backpack basically ruined my life.
When I was a kid, my favorite part of the beginning of each school year was getting to pick out a new backpack at whichever big-box grocery store my parents happened to take me to. Kids' backpacks weren't (and probably still aren't) made to last back then; I'd make it about six or seven months into each grade before my backpack was a muddy, crinkled mess with burst seams and tattered straps. While it wasn't fun walking to class and suddenly having all my school supplies spill out onto the floor behind me, I loved getting to see what new offerings were being sold by the likes of Jansport and High Sierra each year.
Back in those days, my chief interest was never what cartoon character or cool design was printed on my backpack--- it was how many compartments and pockets my pack had. After alI, I needed to be able to store all my books, stationery, snacks, and BeyBlades all in their individual, perfectly segmented pockets. Anything less would be chaos. I remember being in kindergarten--- on one particular day we were being taught how to count by moving paperclips from one pile into another with magnets. Instead of forming two piles, I laid out my paperclips in an exceptionally neat square grid. The teacher told me I wasn't doing the activity right, and swept my grid of paperclips into a messy pile. I must've blacked out, because I don't remember anything past that. Perhaps I destroyed the classroom in a fit of rage.
In any case, the inexplicable perfectionism of my childhood eventually blossomed into the full-on unfiltered neuroticism of my adult self. By the start of college I had grown up to a towering 6'2'' (ladies, don't all come up at once), and it became impossible to find a backpack that didn't hurt my back after a few minutes of wear. I was also becoming increasingly frustrated with the way that my supermarket packs would fall apart so quickly, and wanted something that I could truly wear for rest of my life, or at the very least throughout college.
A lot of people on campus were carrying North Face Recon bags, so I used some leftover money in my dining account and purchased one from the student store. It was incredible. Lightweight, comfortable, and *super* organized. The material was this super slick nylon ripstop that had a cool sheen to it. Plus, the gigantic North Face logo plastered right on the front panel also gave me unfathomable PNW clout (ladies, seriously, don't all come up at once). I was ecstatic. I brought that bag on every commute, every trip, and every adventure I went on. I had finally found my perfect, buy-it-for-life, do-it-all backpack.
Four months later, I walked out of the mall with a brand new Lululemon Cruiser backpack. The Recon had sprouted a small tear at the top of its left shoulder strap two weeks into me owning it, and by the end of fall quarter it had basically tore clean off. The Cruiser wasn't as cool-looking or as feature-packed as the Recon, but my friend Nic had told me about Lululemon's no-questions-asked lifetime free repair program, and I was more or less sold. It had a bunch of tiny external pockets, which made it easy to store and grab all my stuff. I was pretty excited to put my new bag through its paces on an upcoming trip to Alaska that Dad had booked for the whole family. I packed it full of clothes, threw it on, and subsequently returned from the trip with excruciating back pain.
That summer, Nic and I found out about Tom Bihn--- a premium backpack company based right in our home city of Seattle. They had a huge cult following online, and an array of wacky colors and styles. What most people praised were how comfortable and durable Tom Bihn bags were. Nic looked at his backpack, which was starting to fall apart, and I looked at my Lululemon-branded medieval back torturing device. With nothing better to do, we piled into his minivan and took off for the Tom Bihn factory in SoDo.
"Nic, I already have a newish backpack, so I'm probably not going to buy a new one. You should get one though."
"Wow, Nic, this factory is pretty cool. You can actually see them making the backpacks and sewing everything together and stuff."
"Wow, Nic, this one's actually really comfortable. They definitely look way better in person than on the website, too."
"Nic, this one's got a *modular* laptop pocket!"
45 minutes later, Nic and I walked out of the factory each brandishing a brand new Tom Bihn Brain Bag. If the Recon was a BMW, the Brain Bag was a Rolls Royce. It was the most supremely comfortable backpack I had ever put on. The thick 1050d high-tenacity ballistic nylon looked practically indestructible. Every seam was reinforced; the craftsmanship was second to none. We beamed. I couldn't wait to go back in a week and pick up a Tom Bihn modular laptop sleeve and a bunch more accessories.
"What do you mean the laptop sleeves are DISCONTINUED???"
Nic found an old vertical laptop sleeve from high school that worked well enough for his Brain Bag, but I couldn't find one. Every time I set my backpack down in class, I heard the dull thunk of my $1300 MacBook Air hitting the floor with only a single layer of fabric between it and the hard linoleum floor. I was livid. I spent weeks scouring forums, Facebook groups, even subreddits, for anyone who was willing to sell their Tom Bihn laptop sleeve used. No one was. The fans had gotten wind of the discontinuation and were holding onto their investments.
Nic tried to talk me into finding a decent sleeve like his and just making do with it, but I wasn’t having it. I wanted the fancy Tom Bihn sleeve with specialized rails that could attach to the little clips at the top of the Brain Bag, which kept your laptop suspended off the floor and let you slide the sleeve in and out of the bag while it was still attached. After all, you don't use aftermarket parts on a Rolls Royce. The cool modular system was half the reason I even bought the Brain Bag at all. If I was just going to use some random laptop sleeve that didn't fit perfectly into the ecosystem, I might as well have just gone back to the cheap supermarket backpacks!
Months later, and still nobody was selling. Not for a reasonable price, anyway. But my endless browsing of backpack enthusiast forums had exposed me to a new up-and-coming backpack company hailing from Bozeman, Montana: Evergoods.
The way people raved online about Evergoods backpacks, you'd have thought angels descended from heaven and personally designed the packs themselves. Every backpack, travel, or EDC (that’s “every day carry”) focused YouTube channel was featuring Evergoods bags. Forums were cluttered with nothing but pictures of people's Evergoods purchases. Nobody could shut up about them.
The aesthetic of Evergoods instantly drew me in. Unlike Tom Bihn, which had sort of a 90's, dorky dad-bag charm, EG backpacks had clean, sharp lines and a futuristic feel. Not only did they use their own custom fabric that the company developed themselves, they advertised themselves as having this new revolutionary harness system that was supposed to be more comfortable than any backpack that came before it. The accessories weren't impossible to get like Tom Bihn's, either, and it wasn't long before I had placed an order for a brand new Civic Travel Bag from Evergoods, and a bunch of Civic Access Pouches.
I liked my CTB so much that I actually woke up looking forward to the walk to campus each morning. I felt an inexplicable sense of superiority over my classmates as I pulled my textbooks and accessories out of their perfectly segmented and modular compartments that I had configured myself using Evergoods' ecosystem. The construction of the bag was such that even when it only had a bit of stuff in it, it didn't crumple or look floppy--- one of the main frustrations I'd had with almost every bag I'd owned before. When my Dad announced that he wanted to take the family on a trip to New York, I couldn't wait to take my awesome new Evergoods backpack--- it even opened up clamshell style so you could pack it like a suitcase. I was ecstatic from the moment we left the house to the moment we walked out of JFK:
"Damn, my back really fucking hurts."