My mother's a shopper. I'm talking hop-on-a-plane and fly-halfway-'round-the-world for-a-sale type of shopper. She has perfected the art of traveling here with the clothes on her back and two big hollow cases to be filled in the duration of her stay. You could offer the theory that my mother is trying to fill a void in her life when she shops up a storm and squeezes every last ounce out of her weight allowance, but she'd be the first to tut and tell you to "get a grip!" She has no time for such self-awareness nonsense! There are bargains to be had. Shoes and bags to be coordinated. Jeans to be tried on. She lives in Western Australia, where she shops rarely, so when she visits me we make up for the lost time. In polite company, she'll offer the added-value excuse that she enjoys boosting the local economy when she visits.

Trouble is that the morning of her return flight, and even the night before, things are pretty tense. There's the usual emotional stress of parting from each other---but as a family of immigrants we're dab hands at crying-and-going. The emotional baggage is always predictable, but my mother's actual baggage is not. There's always the concern: will she go over the weight allowance this time?

After being penalized more money than she'll ever admit for going over her weight allowance in London last year, and then having to ship herself a leather coat from another airport, I decided it was time to quit the guessing games and take action. I surprised my mother with a little parting gift two days before she left on this past visit: a Luggage Scale. At $11.99 Travelon's handy little scale bought my mother peace of mind. It's portable and easy to use and if she'd found that she was over her weight allowance, we would have had the luxury of time to explore her options and lighten her load. The added bonus with this particular vacation was that my mother knew she still had room for that bargain pair of shoes bought on her last morning here!

If you want a gift that packs a punch with heavy packers, you can weigh your options (sorry!) or just buy Travelon's Luggage Scale.