Where’s Your Lake Bag, You Slut?
Am I prepared for any situation? I would like to respond with a resounding “yes.” Ever since I was younger, I wanted to have anything anyone would ever need inside my cute purse. I longed for the days that friends or strangers exclaimed, “Thank goodness Kari has the blue spearmint gum in her bag, not just the green peppermint kind that Sarah has. Gross.”
In my early to mid twenties, life was grand. I often times refer to that period of my life as the “90210 years,” seemingly perfect. I graduated college, bought my first house, and 4 out of 5 weekdays and all weekends, a group of my friends and I would go to the lake and wakeboard until dark.
I kept a bag in my car for moments like this - when I would get the email (not text, this was 2004 and that cost extra then) from Andy that said, “4pm. Lake.”
My aforementioned bag was filled with my swimsuit, change of clothes, extra mascara, new panties, snacks, and a toothbrush. I later learned that this type of bag was generally referred to as a “Slut Bag” so I quickly changed my tune and was sure to reference my “Lake Bag” as many times during the day as possible.
I had recently begun my seemingly luxurious career in real estate law, and we held business hours of 9am - 5pm. On those days, upon receipt of “the email,” I would come up with various ways to leave around 3:30pm wherein it seemed like I was doing something helpful.
“I am gonna head out and drop off this FedEx stack before they close.”
“Umm…okay? Don’t they do last drop at 6:30? Also the guy comes by at 4 so there really is no reason to…”
“Gotta go! Just want to be sure this Power of Attorney gets to Claire by tomorrow at 10am. You know how she gets! Bye!”
I would run out to my car, leaving behind the FedEx, and head to the lake. This was pre-Instagram story days, so I had no fear of ever getting caught leaving work early to head to the lake. Until now.
Other things that I always kept in my purse were scented lotion, non-scented lotion, two types of gum, one type of mints, lip gloss (which thinking back why would I ever want to share my lip gloss), and Ibuprofen gel caps (because they “work faster than regular ones” and therefore people would want MY ibuprofen gel caps, and not Sarah’s regular ones).
After several years of spending excessive amounts of money to enable the unprepared, I decided to limit the supplies in my bag. I saved money and back problems. I may or may not currently keep a Lake/Slut Bag in my car - because hey, you never know when that email might come through.
