Excess Baggage

My Emotional Support Animal, Mands, tells me that,

‘You either have a good time, or a good story.’ 

Well, strap yourselves in for a heroic tale about air travel, the weirdest guy on the aeroplane, an early morning hunt for a clinic at Nairobi Airport, a busting suitcase of pharmaceuticals, and Chlamydia.

For an extra bit of razzle-dazzle, throw in a high dose of sweating and fever and the moment where I, the hero of this tale, nearly found religion and prayed the plane would crash. But we’re jumping the gun here. 

It’s taken me just over three years to be able to write this story. Not because I’m ashamed, I’ll tell this shit to anyone who’ll listen. It’s just doing this story justice takes some mental gymnastics, and a good dose of Cystitis to relive the authenticity. So, fasten your seatbelts, put your seat in the upright position, and make sure your tray table is secured (both kinds). 

I decided to fly Kenya Airways because it was cheap and I boycott certain airlines for ethical reasons. My destination was London, and as I sat at Cape Town airport sipping on my farewell chardonnay I was excited because I don’t hate air travel. I’m lucky that I’m short, and I like free booze. This means flying isn’t kak, especially if you procure the right seat (I’m not here to give away my top travelling secret). What I will tell you is half my secret– I always go for the aisle because I get toilet anxiety. I like to move around, and I also like to see what people are watching on their inflight entertainment. This is a game I play and it never disappoints.  

I boarded the plane with giddy excitement and got settled in. I don’t need a lot to entertain me so I can break records for settling in. Meanwhile, Roger, two rows up was embracing his inner Mary Poppins. There he was vacillating over whether or not he needed anything out of the pink and white zip-up bag, and particularly anything from the yellow and green zip-up. As he spilt his contents over his aisle mates I took a moment to muse about how much I dislike people. Because really, is there anything worse than the anxiety-inducing goosebumps that come from being deathly still while waiting for everyone around you to settle the fuck down.    

Sit the fuck down Roger. 

A polite air stewardess gave him a settle the fuck down smile.

Then it happened. The human version of the artist’s rendering (in this case Larson). The guy coming up the aisle sweating and looking hella twitchy. Losing momentum as he got ever closer to his destination, “Oh for fuck’s sake!”

That’s correct, the middle seat, right next to me. Beyond kiff.

He didn’t say a word, which comforted me. Chatty, sweaty, and nervous is one of my least favourite trifectas. 

He swaddled the shit out of himself in his static aeroplane blanket and we prepared for takeoff. 

Things went as they usually do. Pre-dinner drinks, go through the entertainment console to decide on inflight viewing, “chicken or beef”… You know the drill. 

But here’s a bit of a departure from the prescriptive nature of cruising at whatever altitude the pilot just announced. Something really weird happened during my dinner. 

Sweaty-nervous-now-swaddled guy decided to use my tray table instead of his. Honestly, it was what I can only describe as trippy beyond reason. Usually, I’d speak my mind but this dude was so strange, all swaddled and away in his metaphorical manger. So I just gritted my teeth and willed a flight attendant to adios my tray pronto a la Hugh Grant in Nottinghill. I’ve never had someone push things aside on my tray to make space for their tasty beverage and bit of a bread roll they were still in the throes of working on. Still, my heinous travel mate was not the worst thing about this flight.

Shortly after dinner, I had to go for a wee. 

And particularly my fellow bitches, you’ll know all about the genuine terror of this scenario. Unless you’ve never encountered the absolute shithead that is Cystitis. As this is an aeroplane tale, and not a delightful 3 Act play, Cystitis entered like the nuclear winter that can only come from removing the foil lid off an aeroplane eggy breakfast. I’m not sure what kind of a psychopath wants to be awakened by excitable long-haul eggs at 5 am shortly before descent, but I, my friends, am not one of those humans.

This bout of Cystitis came with the usual constant need to wee and the unbridled pain involved in weeing out a quarter of a teaspoon every 30 seconds. Lucky for me, it also came with the fever that just courses through you and invades more than your tray table. After the denial passed, I knew I was in for some of the worst hours of my life. I may or may not have prayed for the plane to fall out of the sky, which means I must have been very bloody delirious to think that anything other than Urizone could save me.

The flight attendants smelled a rat, given how often I was going to the loo. Eventually one of them cornered me with a face muddled with concern and suspicion. Mostly a lot of suspicion. She was gracious when I explained that I was at the apex of the UTI journey. Sweaty swaddled guy meanwhile wasn’t looking so sweaty. I was now the weirdo.

The decade-long flight from Cape Town to Nairobi eventually ended and I was told that Hallelujah there is a clinic at the airport. In retrospect, it’s quite astonishing realising that airports have a whole host of behind-the-scenes shit we don’t know about.

Anyway I made it off the plane and wandered through the terminal in a fog of sweat. This is when the Ebola tent came into focus, like some sort of deranged mirage. One of the symptoms of Ebola is a fever so the red flags literally started surrounding me like a host of Beliebers. There’s no hiding how fucked I was and I tried my level best to explain that I had a bladder infection. A UTI. Cystitis. This got helpfully translated as a blood infection so the next thing I was hauled into Ebolaville for a welcome party. I asked to speak to a woman. Reluctantly the swarm of men gave me over to some woman who re-diagnosed my blood infection as a bladder infection and called off the hounds. But she couldn’t help me. This was a place for Ebola, nothing else. She gave me some vague directions to a clinic just outside the airport. 

So the next fun leg of my trip was to clear customs and enter Nairobi to locate the clinic in an underground parking. I have never been so grateful to have a South African passport so I could fuck off into the balmy Nairobi morning without much hassle of a visa. After a bit of a walk and several toilet stops, I found the clinic which had a helpful sign saying it was closed.

‘I could just curl up and die here?’ I thought to myself cheerfully. No such luck, it turns out I do have somewhat of a survival instinct after all.

I soldiered on like the rabid little bladder infection kitten that I was. Meow. 

I don’t remember how I found the information office containing those three very cheerful morning people. They informed me that there’s a doctor at the departures desk where people check in for their flights. Trust me when I say that I was dubious about this. You mean to tell me that qualified doctors in High Visibility vests just hang out at airports all Dr Willy Nilly? 

Dubious. 

But desperate.

So back I trotted on the hunt for this mysterious doctor who was beginning to seem more and more like a fob off.

So there I was, looking for a dude I was told would be in a high-vis vest with a suitcase. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an airport before but this seemed like a helluva ask. A bit like finding a needle in a massive fucking stack of needles if you ask me.

Persistence, fever, and the urge to wee spurred me on and the next thing I’m consulting with a bearded chap who asks if he can borrow a pen. I explained my symptoms and he gave me a lovely concerned bedside manner. He didn’t continue with the patient-doctor caper for very long and eventually, he reached next to him and heaved a massive suitcase onto his lap and began unzipping his Aladdin’s trove of pharmaceuticals.

He asked what I would like and I politely told him antibiotics.

“Super,” he said and began scrappling around like a kitten in a litter box.

He gave me some vague options, so like the former PhD student that I am, I opted for the fastest and shortest course.

The box is something I wish I had a photo of. 

If you’ve ever seen a company logo designed by the owner’s daughter who’s “a whizz with computers,” it was not even in the same ballpark. I did more impressive shit with Word Art in 1998.

Dubious… but desperate I chugged the first little white pill with as much spit as I could muster. Then I tried to close the box containing the blister pack but it came apart. Obviously.

For my troubles, the consult was 30 American dollars because that’s how much I had on me. I also received a scrap piece of paper with scribbles on it. The legitimacy quite frankly astonished me. Plus he pocketed my pen.

The next part of my quest was a bottle of Citrasoda. The excellent doctor told me where I could find a pharmacy in the departures area so off I trotted, buoyed by vaguely-modern-medicine. The pharmacy felt like one of those shops where “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”

Seriously okes, literally no prices on anything.

Oh fuck, here we go.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, my friendly doctor was there smiling and rubbing his hands together. He ushered me to the pharmacy guy (pharmacist?) and they had a huddle over a very small bottle of Citrasoda. It was decided that the going rate was 24 of her majesty’s finest pounds. More than a pound of flesh by any measure, but if you’ve ever had Cystitis in Nairobi Airport with a devastating 6-hour layover and only one working women’s toilet, it’s money well spent. Or stolen.

I bade a fond farewell to the charlatan doctor, because apart from the fact he had just ripped me off spectacularly, I had an antibiotic coursing through my fevered sweaty bod, and a bottle of Citrasoda worth more than saffron. 

When I landed in London I felt magically healed. The next few days went without much incident, minus a few absolutely banging hangovers and some poor decisions around late-night chicken. It was the morning after spending a night in Bath that things really took a turn for the worse. Not only was the hangover el diablo, but my wee was a melange of rust and razor blades. The journey back to London in heavy traffic with two delightful crying children was the stuff of dreams. There are moments to treasure, and those 5 hours spent on whichever one of Satan’s motorways we were on will remain etched into my memory forever.

I’m grateful to the NHS and the fact I’m still registered with a clinic. I was told to wee into a cup and then hold my sample while I waited for the doctor. People looked alarmed and impressed and I thought this could be my time to forge a career as an Influencer and snap selfies with my scarlet urine. I could call myself Crimson Tide.

The doctor eventually called me in and remarked that it was some of the gnarliest she’d seen. For context there were homies sporting Croydon facelifts in the waiting room, so forgive me for bragging amongst such stiff (pun intended) competition. I regaled her with my story and I don’t think she was with me at all. It was only when I produced the scribbled bit of white paper with only one eligible word, “doctor”, and the empty box and leaflet for the antibiotics that she seemed mildly convinced.

She scrutinised exhibits b and c. Exhibit a was still chilling there all red and angry looking. 

The doctor sat back and looked like she was on the verge of a faint chuckle.

Well, my dear, I’m happy to say that after this dose of antibiotics, you won’t have any issues with Chlamydia. Unfortunately, you have a ferocious case of Cystitis that we’ll have to throw the book at. 

Talk about silver linings.