Pepto-Bismol Suitcase

Image from www.werewolves.com. No, really.

I love traveling, but it always makes me sick. No matter how many times nausea strikes my gut at an inconvenient time, I somehow never seem to lose my enthusiasm. I did not regret my trip to Boston even when I was curled in a ball on my bus seat squeezing my knees to my chest and chewing a chalky disk of Pepto-Bismol. I had a sheet of it tucked away in my bag and by the end of the bus ride it was nothing but shredded plastic.

I’ve learned to prepare for the inevitable lurch after lunch – a chocolate chip scone and fudge brownie shortly before my departure was a probably culprit. I got sick in Prague during my first week and I got sick leaving Prague for the United States. I also fell ill in Berlin and Cesky Krumlov and almost every time I’ve ever chugged into New York City on the Metro North.

If I were really practical, I would religiously pack a medium-sized rolling suitcase full of Pepto-Bismol for every voyage. I would fold up an enormous sheet of Pepto-Bismol tablets as small as it would go, like a pink polka-dotted pool tarp. I would pack the neatly folded antacids into the Pepto -pink suitcase, sit on the flap to flatten the air pockets, and zip. I would wheel the onerous load behind me like the queer biological baggage that it is and hoist it onto the next step of the escalator.