The pillow-case mystery

With such a title I hope I'll get some answers.
And now, to the point: in many American and Australisn novels, I read that people put their belongings in pillow-cases. I'm currently reading again Michael Connelly's "The Poet" and this is the relevant extract:
(the man is speaking to the hotel front-clerk desk) :
"Listen, I guess you also have to charge me for a pillowcase. I had to buy clothes here and didn't have any luggage..."
I'm rather baffled... Here, and probably elsewhere, anubody would have bought some cheap holdall...
So, what do you think? Is that still in use?

Maybe they took off from somewhere suddenly without anything but the clothes they were wearing.
Still, why not buy a cheap bag when buying the clothes?Ran out of money maybe?

When I travel, I always put my suits in my suitcase, my pillows in my pillowcase, and my briefs in my briefcase. Why anyone would do anything else I have no idea.

No, I think he's LEAVING with the pillowcase, taking it with him because he didn't have a suitcase. But it's a lame sounding excuse. He probably has something in there he doesn't want the clerk to see and he has to get out of there fast. I read The Poet years ago. Don't remember the scene but it's a good read.

Maybe he had cut a bunch of switches from the tree behind the hotel and did not want the clerk to see what he was bringing home to the misses or maybe his bottom was so sore from what the professional lady had done to his bottom that the pillow case was needed for extra padding for the trip home.

Formerly sometimes people would use pillowcases to put clothing in as they were immediately available and took up little room when they were empty. Nowadays plastic trash bags serve the same purpose.

OH, how I used those plastic store bags for stuff. I don't remember any pillowcase use. The guy could have probably walked out with the thing and no one would be the wiser. That is, if he didn't show the hotel name on it.

So none of you find it's customary, and so much the bette. I have never seen any traveller carrying a bulging pillow-case either, that would be ludicrous.

Now I do remember travelling home from college one Christmas time. It was snowing co-incidentally, and one of the other students was carrying all his belongings in a pink and white striped duvet case. At least that is how I recall the scene. It is possible that he just had a term's worth of dirty laundry in it...

Perhaps the pillow-case as luggage idea comes from the old gunny sack? (AKA burlap bag) A "gunny sack" is that coarse but strong bag that many dry commodities once came in. Once empty, they used to find many uses, especially among the poor. Yes, they were used for luggage, and even clothing.

No old picture of an American hobo is complete unless he had a gunny sack thrown over his shoulder. Image: [url=http://www.mainstreetmuseum.org/wiki/images/9/96/Dorothealangehobobindle.jpg][/u rl]