McGyver Should Have Been a Woman

Pretty much all women are experts at mixing and mashing to get the products we need.
NOTE: totally safe for work even though there are words like menstruation, period, nipples and more.

So a couple of weeks ago I was on a plane and we got diverted because of a storm. We sat on the tarmac for a little over two hours, waiting for the storm to leave our ultimate destination alone. Two rows behind me was a new mom with an 8-month old. Sitting with me was a woman my age, traveling with her 88-year old mother.

As soon as the diversion was announced, I could feel the angst coming from my row-mates. I learned later that the new mom a few rows back got anxiety-based nausea when the announcement was made, and it got worse the longer we stayed on the ground. Our flight was 2-hours, they had planned for 4-hours, and we were well into hour 6.

An hour into our wait and the older woman was clearly uncomfortable and her daughter was upset at not being able to help her. You see, she depended upon Depends and this extra time unfortunately made for a less than comfortable experience. And the woman was unable to change her depends by herself and the tiny bathrooms don’t work with caregivers.

Two rows back the new mom was struggling as there was no way to heat up the bottle and the baby wouldn’t eat. Cue meltdown.

As a few of us were trying to help both parties, a young woman shared she always wears/packs supersize pads because her periods are so inconsistent and incredibly heavy. So she shared one of her extra large pads and with the help of a flight attendant and her daughter up by the cockpit, one problem was solved.

Another traveler had four or five Thermacare heat wraps and yes, the new mom McGyvered some heat for the bottle…whether it was the minor heat or if the little one was just that hungry, the bottle was attacked with vigor.

After all of this, another woman joked that as women, “…we have to be ready for anything at anytimeâ€.

And this really is true—even when it works perfectly, our bodies fuck with us pretty consistently. The lucky ones just bleeding through their clothes once or twice— although I worked with a woman for whom bleed throughs were a common occurrence because her flow was so very heavy. She would store gallon size ZipLock bag and small bottles of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide—and 5 pairs of black leggings in the office. But then there are those with endometriosis, migraines, horrifying cramps and excruciatingly heavy flows.. When breastfeeding our nipples crack and bleed and leak—heck even shoot milk across a room. (Don’t ask). And menopause…the foggy brain, the hot flashes, the fatigue…no, the deep, deep exhaustion, and the nights. Oy vey. The nights. le sigh.

And let’s face it, products really haven’t evolved much past the time when Cleopatra would use tampons made out of soft papyrus around wood or made pads out of wool, paper, moss, animal skins or grass. In the 1800’s women who couldn’t afford pads (sound familiar) just bled into their clothes. So…that huge leap to period underwear wasn’t really such a leap, but effectiveness came a long way. But neither the cup nor the underwear are great for traveling.

Most women I talked to say that they’ve always mixed and mashed to get some semblance of effective product for whatever they are dealing with at the time.

Why haven’t the tampon-like incontinence products taken off? Both Poise Impressa and Revive get good reviews.

What if there were a little glow-stick like heater for bottles on the go? What if breast pads had a cooling feature and lotion built in like Kleenex with cooling lotion?

Can SweatBlock wipes be used for hot flashes? Is there a non-powder form for scalp sweat from hot flashes? I’ve used both cooling patches and cooling scarves for help in minimizing the effects of hot flashes, but neither is really cold enough and they are a far cry from looking fashionable—and a lot of them need to be soaked in cold water for 10 minutes to be effective.

I’m fifty-fucking-seven years old and while in the first part of my life I was really jonesing for the flying car from the 1939 World Fair. Now? I just want products that are truly convenient, that truly work and that we don’t have to McGyver with a hair pin and the chewing gum from the dude in 28C.