Never carry-on

Luggage in Midlife

Sarah Milken  0:04  

Hey peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife pump wondering, was this it for me? That day I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shit shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just love coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hey, peeps, this is Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic and this is the flexible neurotic Podcast. I'm sorry if you can hear the air conditioning. I really had to blast it because Instagram husband my husband, who I call Instagram husband because he hates Instagram has decided that the air conditioning bills are too high and so he's set it so that the air conditioning resets itself every fucking hour. So it goes from my liking of 68 degrees to like 77 degrees so I am blasting the fog out of it right now. If you're a midlife woman, which I'm sure you are if you're listening to this shit, I bet you can relate because now I have like armpit rings in my armpits of my green linen shirt. Okay, whatever. Anyway, recovered from the flow still sound super nasal. The cleaning services here and there are a lot of random noises happening but I'm not vacuuming so I really don't give a shit. Okay, anyway, I wanted to remind you of two types of podcast episodes the longer more in depth ones with deep dives with expert guests. And then another version that just basically called Fun midlife shed quickie minisode series. This episode format is shorter, more stream of consciousness like we need more Sara stream of consciousness I now? I don't know. It's just fucking crazy. In this minisode series I highlight resonating and edgy midlife shed from my Instagram grids solo short pop ups with gas and stuff that we're all thinking about in midlife, but maybe too embarrassed to ask up there goes the vacuum again. And of course, I will ask you to do nothing except for just sit back and listen. I mean, as my teenagers, I guess I'm just a little TMI, but I will get to the bottom of almost any issue. Okay, so this minisode is called never carry on luggage in mid life. You're gonna understand why, let's go. Let's discuss the fucking medicine bag that is creating a craze on my Instagram. If you're new here, let me explain. If you're a flexible, neurotic, regular, give me a minute so I can catch everyone up. Okay, so when I started this podcast and Instagram, I was sharing more personal information about me on the podcast episodes, but much, much less about my family and me on Instagram. I was scared to be that person. Then when women reached out wanting more of me, I opened the fucking curtains while most of them so that my husband and teens could get a real kick out of it. Oh my god. Okay, so anyway, the cats out of the bag, we've covered that. Okay, so we're going to move to the origins of where the medicine bag even started. Okay, but first, we're gonna start with Okay, spring break. This year, my husband and two super fucking friendly teenagers went on a two week family college tour for my 17 year old son, who's going to be a senior this year. So for this trip, I showed the fucking medicine bag on Instagram that I bring on all trips. This is not just like a cute little toiletry bag that you can put makeup on. It's literally like two feet by two feet and about six to eight inches deep. Okay, so you could like fit a pair of ski boots if that gives you a conceptual understanding if you did not see it on Instagram. Okay, I got 1000s of messages about this bag.

Oh my god. What have I even started with this fucking medicine bag? Okay, so you newbies are caught up on this high level topic. All right, so now we're on the same page. This is not just that medicine bag with Motrin and band aids. This is the mama fucking mama medicine bag. That like I said is bigger than a shoebox. It's like ski boot size. It's a shoe box and a half if you do the math like Carrie Bradshaw and me. Okay, if you don't know who Carrie Bradshaw is, I'm really fucking sorry. I need to pause this podcast and go back and watch 78 seasons of Sex in the City. Okay, back to the medicine bag. Why the medicine bag? Why is it so damn important to me that it takes up one full carry on piece of luggage? How did this whole saga even start? This is probably going to be a two part episode so get fucking comfortable. Let's start with the why and when I'm trying to remember what your was, but I do have midlife brain so I'm not really good at like giving exact years. I can't even remember what I fucking wore yesterday. So who cares what fucking euro was, I already mess up my anniversary was 20 years and not 18. And then I really go back and fix them on Instagram. I might have a PhD but math is not my strong suit, whatever. I've already accepted that I did get A's in math, but I probably had a tutor every single day in my life. Let's just say maybe it was like four or five years ago, I convinced my family to go on an African community service trip, we would go to Kenya, we will do one week of hands on building in an African rural community with an international community service organization. And then the second week we would do five star glamping Okay, that sounds like a good deal. So here goes. I'm basically allergic to mosquitoes. They fucking love me. They seek me out they find me it can be a beach high altitude where they're not even supposed to be like a place in Colorado, my back fucking yard. The baits become golf ball size and they stay for weeks after years of this. I got prescription steroid cream that helps me so much. It doesn't 100% solve the problem, but it helps me from literally peeling my skin off. Okay, so because I'm allergic to mosquitoes, it became like this huge panic like, how was I going to go to Africa and be eaten by mosquitoes? Like was I going to die in Africa from a mosquito bite? What if I got bitten and got like Dengue fever and died in some nearby hospital or field? So I started neurotically researching all of this mosquito business, like what could I really do to get around this? So I read that you could spray your clothes with the spray, and you could still wash your clothes up to 10 times and it would stay on and repel the mosquitoes. Okay, game on. I hired my cleaning lady and Instagram husband. And after I bought all of this hideous like new wardrobe gear, like hiking shit and outdoor gear and cargo pants and like pants that were like, kind of like fake Lulu lemons. You know, I was thinking like Safari, Ralph Lauren and Lauren Hutton is wearing like a white blouse blowing in the wind. And there's a tiger sitting next to me that isn't eating me. And there's someone photographing me in a leather beautiful desk. Okay, now, it was more like a fucking weirdo fabrics. I can't even pronounce what the fabrics are called Tactical ugly clothes from REI. But you know, I would do a little serif style and I would throw in an African looking necklace from free people. So needless to say, we sprayed all of our clothes, we literally had like hanging racks and laundry lines in the backyard, sprayed the fuck out of all of the clothes so that none of us would get bitten by mosquitoes. Okay, so I mean, every single piece of clothing like down to the socks, okay. And you know, if you follow me that I don't do carry on. I like different outfits for different themed days, the camel day, the working construction day. My kids don't enjoy semi thematic outfits, but I do and this was before I was even on fucking Instagram. Before I had a podcast before anything. This was just me, myself and I for me, doing me wanting to be me dressing like me. I don't fucking care. I just want what I want. I want my jewelry. I want my necklaces. I want my pants. I want everything to be the way I want it. So Sarah does not do carry on. This gives Instagram husband a lot of anxiety. Okay, but who gives a shit? I mean, honestly, I was I like I'm 47 now so it was probably like 4243 Like, I'm going to start listening to my husband at that age when I've known him since I was 13. No, thanks. Okay, so anyway, we had literally like 67 bags, pieces of luggage. Probably literally. If you've heard me before my rolling carry on is the whole medicine bag. Okay, like I said the ski boots size medicine bag is in my rolling okay. Then there's toiletries and makeup that are squeezed in the side and then spills over into the bag that goes on top of my carry On that has like snacks, magazines, the water bottle that I have to buy inside the airport because they make me throw away the one that I have in the car on the way to the airport because I can't get through security. Okay. And in this trip, I did add a pair of underwear. Not because I was worried that I was going to like shit or pee in my pants and I wasn't even having Peri menopausal bleeding at this point. For some reason, my intuition was like, just pack an extra pair of underwear. I have no idea why but guess what? I'm fucking happy. I did eat and you're gonna hear why. Okay, bags are packed. I've already had nine divorces. Every vaccination known to man for all of us. My husband's still not feeling great from the vaccinations. We're taking like 10,000 Malaria pills. I have no idea what I'm putting in my body. We had to go to some like travel doctor to like, prevent us from like dying in Africa. I have my full medicine bag fully stocked. Yes, I'm getting back to the whole medicine bag thing. Don't you worry. My husband yelled, complained and scorned us the whole time we were packing. He repeated this mantra. And this is really important to this episode. We are going to a major city. Why the fuck do you need all this crap? Just keep that in your head.

We're flying to Nairobi, a major city. Okay, you guys keep that in your head. Okay, so we get to the airport. We're flying business. Thank God for points because honestly, I don't even know what to say. But at least it wouldn't be as bad. Okay, blah, blah, blah. We land in Paris. My husband hates layovers just like everyone else. So he was trying to be a good husband and he books the connecting flight from Paris to Nairobi with only one hour in between. Okay, that shit does not work. We get off the plane in Paris and he says run okay. And he didn't like just mean like, walk a little faster. He meant full fucking sprint. Okay, so the four of us are fully sprinting through the Paris airport with my giant medicine bag with the roller that like the fucking wheels are cockeyed. I've been asking for a new one for two years and if I buy a new one myself, then he tells me that I didn't read all the proper reviews and I shouldn't have ordered that one. So I continued to use the cockeyed one. I have to carry on to kids have their backpacks whatever I'm fully fucking sweating. I wasn't even like in Super perimenopause yet just running sweating. We're running through the terminals the airport trying to catch the connection. Oh my god we get to the plane when they're about to shut the doors just like in the movies. Again the remember I have the rolling suitcase of makeup of medicine and the additional bag on top and all the plain crap and everything that everyone says that they don't want but then they asked me for during the flight. And when I'm asking them when we're standing in our house kitchen Do you want this and do you want that they all fucking ignore me so that I bring everything and then they proceed data snack every six minutes of the plane ride. Okay, we get into our seats. I'm going to full fucking sweat but I'm happy we made it. We land in Nairobi. We're standing at the baggage carousel where our 67 bags, it keeps spinning. My heart is pounding all those perfectly curated technical outfits with a dash of style and all sprayed to repel mosquitoes. The sweat is building on the back of my neck. my blow dryer is fucked at this point. Like I thought I could maybe get through five days of the trip with my fresh blow dry. There's no more luggage from the plane. Let's just say the Nairobi airport is how you imagine it to be. There's no air conditioning. I wasn't even Peri menopausal. Like I said, we go to the desk. They have no idea where our luggage is. Oh, maybe it's in Paris because you cut the flight so close from the connection. We don't know. Oh, wow. That's super fucking comforting. Okay, that's cool. The driver takes us to our hotel. There's two nice hotels in Nairobi. They are barricaded with high gate security like the Gates go up like 4000 feet into the air so no one can get in. We pull in. It's gorgeous. I'm thinking Oh, okay. There's gonna be a gift shop. I can maybe buy some clothes. The shop is closed and it looks really fancy through the window. Okay, cool. We get to our rooms. We only have the clothes we slept in on the plane and sick, sick white hotel robes.

I have my makeup, my medicine bag and the extra pair of underwear. All four of us we have two separate rooms the kids thankfully got their own rooms. We all have to sleep in the thick heavy white robes or sleep naked. I don't sleep naked not because like I'm scared to but like that just like feels weird to me. No way. And my kids are sharing a room so they're Not sleeping naked. They're like teenagers. Okay, so they dropped off for toothbrushes from housekeeping. But of course, because I packed my own shed, I had mine in my carry on luggage, okay, and the extra underwear. The next morning, we have to put our plain clothes back on, I go into the hotel gift shop that was locked up the night before. There's a fur vest for $3,500 A hat for $70 and hotel labeled T shirts in all the wrong sizes. So I don't buy the vest. I do buy the hat because it's a safari hat. And at least if I have to wear a hotel t shirt, I'm going to try to make myself look cute. And then the fucking next on the crewneck T shirts are so tight that I have to cut them off so that they're like Flashdance. And my kids are freaking out that they have to wear the shirts and I'm like looking at my husband and saying, Can you tell me again? Nairobi, major metropolitan city? Why are you packing so much shit? Okay. Hopefully I will have found a photo of us by the time this airs. But I don't know maybe I deleted all of them. Because I was so traumatized by the fact that we went to Nairobi with no luggage. Okay. So then I think, Oh, the organization that we're doing the community service with is an international organization. They're sending us a tour guide from that organization. And he's gonna help us find some clothes in some stores like throughout Nairobi. Okay, great. So he shows up with the driver. It's his second day ever in Nairobi, that's fucking helpful. Then he continues to tell us that there are no stores, like, I mean, no stores, there's no gap or target or anything. Everything's like, I don't know, like a flea market, a sort of like outdoor mall, but not like how you dream about like, Oh, I'm in Morocco, and I'm buying this beautiful drape to beaded skirt. That's not what I'm talking about. Okay, we are desperate.

I'm like, There's no way that we can take this propeller plane the next day to a rural field in the middle of Kenya, to stay in a cabin to do community service trip with no fucking clothes. Like, how is that even possible? Okay, so he tells us that there's a mall, that some people got killed at a few years prior, it was like all over the news. And that they might have like a few random stores here and there, and would we be willing to go Okay, so after I go over the fact that people were killed there, we get there, we're desperate. And there are like metal detectors to get in. There's like high level security. There are a few random stores. They're all unrecognizable brands. Not that I even fucking cared about brands at that point, but I'm like, Can I at least recognize that these aren't like size extra large sweatpants from Hanes? I mean, it was like a full fucking shit show. We each bought a couple of T shirts with some strange logos on them. Ill fitting shorts, weird socks, and we each got like a pair of sweatpants and like some weird sweatshirts. I have no idea. Okay, so we board the mini prop plane. Oh, I forgot to tell you we had to buy a suitcase from the guy who had like one of those stands on the corner. So we had like a few little suitcases for like all of our extra miscellaneous stuff. And some of the stuff that we bought at the store the like mall place that people had been killed out a few years before. Okay, so we board the mini prop plane. It takes us to this rural community. It's like, I don't even know like grass fields or something. There's two pilots just asked and then two pilots. One falls asleep. I'm not fucking kidding. falls asleep. falls asleep. I'm pushing my husband going. The pilot is asleep. I'm profusely sweating. Okay, fine. We land on a grass field with no luggage in hand except for those little tchotchke suitcases that we bought on the corner with the ill fitting clothes. We literally have to like walk a mile to our like accommodations. They were lovely. Not five star but doable. There are like 20 other Americans on the same trip. We eat communal meals. So of course, our loss of luggage becomes a comedy routine for the next like four days. Yes. I said days multiple fucking days without clothing. Okay, and so I'm repeating to myself to my husband to my kids. You guys were going to a major metropolitan city like Nairobi. Why are you fucking packing so much? Okay, great. Okay, so no luggage, no luggage on the first night the comedy routine You know, goes into full effect. So we're at this communal dinner, which already gives my husband a panic attack because communal dinners and my husband are like not a good match. He's super nice, but like community dinners, no thanks. Okay, so there's one guy who is a banker, like an investment banker from Canada. And he's there by himself, no wife or kids or whatever. He says to Jeremy, Jeremy, I might have a box of new underwear. Okay, I can't even explain to you how my husband is like the last person who would take underwear from someone else like honestly, he would rather freeball it than wear someone else's underwear. So you know that if Instagram husband is taking underwear, he's fucking desperation station. It's like he's gonna die there. Okay. And then I go back to the Montra, Nairobi major metropolitan city, why are you packing so much, whatever, fine. Then there's another kind lady and her teenage daughter in there at the community table with us. And they say, We can bring you two pairs of leggings. So there will be like one pair of leggings for my daughter and one for me. And like, of course, they were clean and they were normal people but like, who wants to wear leggings from someone else? But guess what? There's no fucking choice. We don't have any clothes. Okay, great. So I think day four,

maybe five, the luggage arrives. Okay. Everyone sees the 67 bags. It was like Princess Diana, with her Patagonia duffel bag showed up. I was so embarrassed. But whatever. It was all my luggage with the free people necklaces and the whole thing. I got over it. I could return the leggings of the lovely lady who had lent them to me. So of course, I hand washed them, hung them, whatever. Jeremy got to keep the fucking underwear because like the guy is going to take like used underwear back. I mean, whatever. And the guy who runs the organization who is beyond smart beyond lovely, decides he's gonna have dinner with each family alone in each of their cabins throughout the week. Okay, so tonight was our night. He comes to our cabin with this like cool picnic dinner, and Instagram husband Jeremy, my husband stands out from the table and he's pacing and I'm like, God, like, I don't understand why he's pacing. I know he's not like loving this, like full on social situation. But like, this is weird. Like he's acting weird. He opens a Windows because there's no air conditioning in the cabin in Africa. Okay, he's pacing. He's being weird. What the fuck is wrong with him? He's embarrassing me. Okay, he goes into our bedroom of the cabin and changes his shirt and comes back out. The guy keeps talking. Jeremy has sweat dripping down his face. What the fuck? Jeremy What the fuck is happening? And he's like, making these weird eye movements and I don't even understand what's happening. Finally, the guy leaves Jeremy looks dead. Okay. I'm like, What is going on with you? He's like, I think I have a fever. I'm really sick. I don't know what's wrong with me. Okay. I opened the medicine bag. Yes, the mama medicine bag and I bust out the thermometer. He has 103 Fever. That's cool. We're in rural Africa by prop plane. Okay, and he has 103 Fever. So then I bust out the Z pack from the mum as medicine bag that I packed. And of course, we're all taking Malaria pills. FOC Okay, next morning fever is still going. I feel weird that we're not going to go do the building of the school with the other families. That's what we signed up for this trip. So I tell Jeremy I'm really sorry that like you're dying here and there's no air conditioning and you have 103 fever and I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you? Thank God this was pre COVID I tell Jeremy that I have to go and I have to go do this building shirt with the kids because I can't like leave them in here all day and there's nothing I can really do for him. And I feel bad but but by by Jeremy and he's in the bed sweating and doesn't really know what to do. But it's just kind of like dealing with it. So then the guy who runs the organization who had been at the dinner with us the night before comes back over to have like an in depth conversation about I don't know community service in Africa with Jeremy okay. I just want to tell you that it's an on air conditioned room with 103 fever and he didn't want Jeremy to feel like lonely or alone while we were gone. But like Jeremy could not have this type of philosophical conversation but he was. The best part is is that I had been washing hand washing my underwear so I had black thong underwear that was hanging It's all over the armor of the room like there was no closet it was like an armoire, because it was air drying. So Jeremy is sitting there in like a weird like canopy bed that's supposed to look like it's from Ralph Lauren, but it's not. And the guys sitting there Jeremy sweating in my underwears hanging all around it. And I had to leave whatever I had to go out with the kids. Jeremy's text me, he says he's losing it, and he doesn't know what to do. And so then I call the head guy who had just left our cabin. And I say, I think we need a doctor. And he says, well, the closest doctor is the hospital that we visited the day before. Okay, so this rural community in Africa has this small hospital that the community organization that we were with on this trip had built for the local people. Okay, so the ambulance for this local rural hospital is a foreigner, okay?

The roads are all rocks, like, I'm not talking about fucking pebbles in a driveway, like boulders, like you're already carsick in like a regular car and like the truck that we're driving in all day. So the four runner and the doctor take Jeremy for an hour ride to the hospital, okay. And Jeremy gets to the hospital, and there's cattle in the driveway. They can't get to the hospital until all the cattle move. There's like a bazillion cattle. Okay. The doctor we met the day before, when we were on the quote tour of the rural hospital determines that Jeremy has some bacterial infection or something. They don't really know what it is. And he said, Oh, I'm already on the antibiotics. And they said, well, obviously they're not strong enough. So we're going to give you an injection. Okay, so Jeremy gets this injection takes the foreigner ambulance and our back to the cabin. And while this is happening, that kids and I are like pouring cement, and cutting wires and doing all this stuff to build this school, which was the project of the trap. Jeremy was totally nauseous could not eat the semi weird like community dinners. So I would just bring him bread rolls and he would stash them until the next meal just in case. They didn't offer bread rolls at the next meal. Let's just say that this whole situation was not pretty Jeremy was lying in a non air conditioned cabin with a very high fever the white fabric hanging from the bed like it was supposed to be a Ralph Lauren ad. It's so was in the showers were fucking freezing. The bedrooms were hot. I mean, it's basically like I should just now looking back on and tell him that that's what fucking menopause feels like. Welcome to the big leagues. Dude. Welcome to midlife. You're hot. You're cold. You have no idea what the fuck is going on? Okay, so for the next three days, he sits in the bed eats the bread rolls. The kids and I are pouring concrete. We actually met phenomenal people on this trip. Really cool people. I think I forgot to tell you that one of the families that we became friendly with was a family of four with two teenage daughters. They traveled from New York City with only carry on. Okay, I'm going to repeat that again. A family of four with only carry on. No luggage. What the fuck? Okay, my makeup is one carry on. They had a few pieces of clothing that they kept washing. What was wrong with me? Why did I need the necklace and the clothing and the safari hat and the technical outfit that was sprayed with mosquito repellent and the mama fucking medicine bag? I don't know. But guess what? I didn't care because it's me. And you know what, even though I was only 42 and not 47 I feel that I knew then that I had to just do fucking me carry on doesn't work for me and it's never ever going to work. I think our luggage that seemed like it was for the royal family. So it was one large suitcase like a humongous Patagonia bag that you could fit like three bodies in for each of us to miscellaneous bags for carry ons. It was definitely the topic of conversation on this trip. Okay, other than the great work that we're doing, and the fact that Jeremy probably originated COVID in the rural fields of Africa. I'm just kidding, but sort of nod okay. And my medicine bag became quite the talk also because it guess what, everyone fucking needed it. All right. Okay, so some of the people on the trip might have eaten something weird so they were nauseated Guess what? Sarah's medicine bag had XO Fran. People needed shit from the royal family meaning me my suitcase. says my medicine bag if they were making fun of suddenly everyone needed it teenage girl had a cold needed day quell. Remember, we're in a rural field in Kenya, not a metropolitan city, like my husband said, with a hospital an hour away for locals on all rock roads that make you want to vomit. Okay, so we finished with the community service aspect of our trip. And we get to the quote, good part. lol so far a, we arrive at the first five star Lodge. The air conditioning only goes full blast so your nose hairs freeze off, or you have to have it off completely.

I mean, I don't know which one's better like freezing sweating. I don't know especially at 42 Okay, so the food was a little weird, but the place in the animal sightings were amazing. Get to the next Lodge. This one was not five star like the first one but like I'm not going to be bratty. It is what it is. Right? It's run by an older couple who adore Neil Diamond. Okay. There's South Africans in Kenya who adore Neil Diamond and own and run this lodge. Who doesn't love Neil Diamond? But every night was drinks with the kids and them in the Neil Diamond room. Okay. Yes, they had a Neil Diamond lounge. Okay. They convinced us every night to come and have drinks Fine, whatever. We don't even drink alcohol, which I mean, I don't I couldn't even tell you why. But most of the reason why is because both of us are convinced that it wakes us up in the middle of the night. Okay, so we have like pretend drinks fine. They convinced us to go on a camel ride the next morning like camel breakfast morning. Okay, that sounds lovely. Nice African safari breakfast. So I skipped my lodge breakfast and coffee. We mount the camels. Okay. Camels are like, kind of smelly, kind of nasty, but guess what? It's part of the African experience. We hike five miles on the camels up the bumpiest path in the mountains. So we were basically all carsick and I thought I was gonna die. My kids were in a state of shock and my husband was trying not to get divorced because I thought I was gonna have a nervous breakdown. And there were men following behind us with guns in case like a scary animal popped out. Okay, we get to the camel breakfast at the body of water. I was attacked by the mosquitoes. They were eating my neck. I apparently, I hadn't covered my neck with the mosquito spray clothing. Like why? I mean, honestly, the one spot that I didn't have the mosquito close on. I have mosquito bites all over my neck. There are golf balls. Okay, they're growing. I'm dying. Okay, so they say it's time to go back. And then I hear that there could potentially be a car like if we wanted to opt out of the camel ride back. There could be a car, so I didn't want to be rude to the lodge owner Neil Diamond enthusiast. But guess what, I opted for the fucking 45 minute bumpy car ride back. And the guys with the guns rode the camels back to lodge. So Need I say more that night. I stayed in the room while everyone else went to dinner. I just couldn't do Neil Diamond one more night. I needed to reset. Okay, there was running across the roof of our room of our cabin. I get scared. My phone's not working. There's no Wi Fi. Okay, nothing's working. I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna die here in this room. So I run out of the room towards the place that my kids and husband are doing the Neil Diamond dinner. And there are baboons running along the path, not towards me, but I guess they were what was on my roof. All right, this is getting really fucking fun. I was in my mid 40s really wanting to call my mom like as if my mom's gonna save me in LA in her house. But like, I was like, nobody's understanding what's happening here. So the next evening, we're convinced to go on a very flat camel ride to see this sunset. I'm like, How bad could that be? halfway into the ride? My son who was probably 12 at the time says Mom, I need to take a shit. And I'm like, What? What the fuck are you talking about? Not here. He's like no mom, you know or sound like I'm going to shit in my pants. I'm like, Jake, there's like nothing out here. So we find this like little tiny bush. It must have been like a foot high. He takes care of his business. My tissues from the medicine bag that nobody wanted originally was now empty in my purse because every single person had to use my tissues to wipe their nose of dirt and this and that. Okay, what the fuck? What's going to happen here? The Neil Diamond enthusiast let Like he's gonna watch my son take a shit. But like, how was Jacob wipe his ass? Okay, great. So I took off my sock and Jake wipes his ass. Many of you who are moms and no, you would do the same thing. Okay? All I can say was is that I didn't have a plastic bag handy. So guess what? I pinched the end of the sock that didn't have the shit on it.

I hand it to Instagram husband and I never asked about it again. Who knows? The shitty saw could still be hiding in the sunset of Kenya. I don't know. Don't give a shit. But guess what? Needless to say, we had a great time made many memories of a lifetime from my husband telling me that we were going to Nairobi a major metropolitan city. And why couldn't I just bring carry on like the other family from New York to arriving with all of our luggage lost in Paris? To him borrowing underwear from a stranger to him contracting probably the first COVID case in Africa. Just kidding, sort of. And to my son, wiping his ass with my sock with the Neil Diamond lodge keeper enthusiast. I mean, do I really need to say more? But guess what, there is more. We boarded the plane to get to Paris to connect to LA. Thank goodness it's business class again. Thank God Instagram husband has so many points on his credit card are all buckled in ready to take off. They tell us that the plane has the delay. There's like weird noises coming from the door. I'm like, Oh, great. Maybe we're going to be like held hostage. Maybe there's like a terrorist situation like what the fuck is happening? Why are they stopping the plane? The door to the business class opens. And the President of Kenya and his wife and their staff board the plane. Okay, that's weird. Whatever. Fine. I just thought that was an interesting side. No, you can stop a plane if you're the president of Kenya. We make it to Paris at this point. I don't even care if they lose my mosquito spray clothes in my free people necklace and my $70 hat from the hotel in Nairobi. Because guess what? We're almost home. Right? Okay. I'm hungry. I didn't eat the weird breakfast that they served on the plane from Nairobi to Paris. So I decided I'm gonna have an egg sandwich at the airport. Right? So I eat that sandwich. It's not that bad. Like, how bad can an egg sandwich be right? an hour from landing in LA. I say to my Instagram husband. I have a stomach ache. If you know Jeremy, he fucking ignores any kind of sickness that I'm ever talking about. He's like, Yeah, whatever. I make him take down the 500 pound medicine bag from overhead storage. Undo all of it. Get the stomach medications that I need. He thinks I'm making the biggest deal out of nothing. He's like rummaging to try to find the stomach labelled bag. yet. I don't want to have explosive diarrhea in the airplane bathroom. I'm dying. He's ignoring me. He should have been thanking me for taking the Imodium. So I wouldn't like shit all over the plane. We land in LA we get off the plane. I'm in so much paid and then I'm crawling on the floor of the airport. Okay. Instagram is staring at me. Like what the fuck is she doing? I'm curled over, I'm dying. A policeman sees me. He asks, Can I help you? And I'm like, yeah, like somehow you need to get me to the car. Because they feel like I'm gonna die. Okay, great. I get home. Let's just say I lived on the toilet. I went to my doctor. He said, You're fine, Sarah. It's just a bog. three more days go by five more days still shitting my brains out. You're fine. Sarah, Instagram husband and my kids were assigned certain toilets because although the doctor kept saying you're fine, Sarah, just in case maybe you don't want to share toilet seats in case you have some esoteric, like disease or something that you brought home from Africa. Okay, great. Thanks. Okay. So at a certain point after like five days of diarrhea, I was like, Okay, I'm fucking done with this. You're fine. Sarah. I call the travel doctor who gave us many of the amazing medications for the medicine bag. She says Sarah you have to shit in a box. have Jeremy come pick it up and bring it back. Oh my god. What the fuck? I need to shit in the bag. Give it to my husband. He's like, Oh my god. Sarah, this has to stop. I call the office they say he asked me it her soon because the courier is leaving. Okay, I'm really sorry. But like, it's really hard to shit on command and like in a limited timeframe. And my shit wasn't solid at this point. It was like liquid. Okay, fine. After like an hour and a half. I've one pellet. Okay, it's like the size of a cheerio. I call the doctor I'm like, I have a cheerio pellet to give you and that is it. If she says it's totally fine, we'll be able to do the check of the stool from the pallet. Great. Instagram husband whisks the ship pellet over there. I don't hear back all weekend. Of course the lab is closed. The doctor calls me on Monday and tells me I have some rare bacterial something like E. coli mixed with Ebola.

I don't even know what I have. She's like, it's not pretty, it's not great, but you're going to take these 47,000 antibiotics and you're going to be fine. So I proceeded to shit for another month, but then I was okay. So yes, that was fun. If you're wondering why I don't do carry on why I carry an extra large medicine bag. Why I should carry extra socks in case someone needs to wipe their ass on a camel sunset ride, then you have come to the right place. My husband is never consulted on weather anymore, because he's always wrong. I never have an umbrella when I need one. He tells me on a constant basis that we're going to a metropolitan city and then if I forget something that can be bought there. I don't trust that anymore. And then neither do my kids. We are tone deaf when he speaks about luggage. And I'm never going to be his carry on girl with the no makeup and no medicine bag and no pink travel steamer. Do you be you choose you even if other people give you shit for it? You know your limits? You know what you need? Don't let others in midlife give you their limits. And don't ask for my antibiotics when you're dying in a field in Kenya from infection. Here's to know carry on.

I also just want to say when I originally started posting about the medicine bag during a college trip for Jake, my rising senior, and I got so many fucking messages from you guys. You wanted the list, you wanted pictures, the whole thing and I kept promising, but I’ve just been crazy busy. I haven’t been able to do it, but here I am. In the next week or so look on my stories and my posts. I am going to provide it all. The contents of the fucking medicine bag. So, pay attention, stay tuned, it’s coming.

Okay, peeps, there are a few things you can do to help me with this podcast first. Fucking subscribe. Da okay. The more you subscribe, the more apple podcast suggests my podcasts and new listeners find me second share with some friends that are so many people who would love midlife shit. Share it on your Instagram. And third, write a fucking Apple review. It's so annoying. Like even if you can figure it out and you're not like tech limited like me. It's still annoying, but guess what? It's so helpful. I love you guys. If you DM me, I'm the only one of my Instagram you will hear back from me that day. You can DM me 700 times I'm gonna respond to every single time. I respond to everyone. I love this podcast. I love the listeners. I love the community that we're creating. Stay cool. Love you to talk soon.