Okay, so you’ve been pregnant for about a month with nothing much to show for it but the pink lines, and just when you’re wondering if this is all there is to it, you awake one fine morning starring in your own personal Lord of the Rings quest saga just to pick up some detergent at Target. There are myriad obstacles and dangers – fatigue, headache, nausea; you’re actually beginning to resemble Gollum – but none are so daunting as the threat of the PIP, or the “Puke In Public.” The reality is, unless you have servants, you probably need to do your own grocery shopping, banking and other errands, maybe you work outside the home, and life must go on. But, as you venture into that world at large, the usually innocuous scenery suddenly bombards your senses with all the subtlety of the county fair.

While loud blaring noises and bright lights are annoying, smells are Public Enemy #1. I would gag if I passed a neighbor’s rosebush just as badly as if it were a hot-dog stand. And forget about going anywhere that permits smoking. The various odors of society are unavoidable, and chances are high of experiencing the PIP at some point. Yes, this is an off-putting topic, but trust me, you’ll feel a lot more feminine and less like an atrocity if you’re able to control the parts of the situation that are controllable, and you do that with a PIP-pack.

The PIP-pack is best accommodated in a large boat bag that doubles as your purse. The canvas totes from Land’s End are durable and washable, and reasonably priced. It may feel bulky, but once you have your baby and lug a diaper bag around, this won’t have seemed like such a big deal. In fact, it may be a good idea to just do your diaper bag shopping early. The pack is divided into prevention and damage-control kits.

Your prevention kit consists of the legendary, trusty saltine packets, to be eaten at the first pang of queasiness, a bottle or thermos of cold water, to be sipped frequently, ginger Altoids to combat post-meal upset, and a cotton handkerchief wrapped over a cut lemon that you store in a plastic bag to use in case of heinous Odor Assault (you can keep these at the ready in the fridge). On this last note, if you can find an essential oil that doesn’t make you heave, like lime or rosemary (these had limited runs of success for me), you won’t have to factor in carrying a perishable and remembering to pull it out of your purse to chill or change when you get home. Are you going to look weird strolling through the mall with a nosegay when you’re hit with a whiff of caramel corn or the Macy’s girl starts squirting her atomizer? Sure. But it beats having to delve into the second half of your PIP pack.

In your damage-control kit, pack several plastic bags (I recycled grocery bags that I could tie and toss) for doing the deed, a couple of heavy-duty zip bags in case there is nowhere to immediately toss garbage (sorry, I would never advocate dumping your bio-waste barf bag just anywhere – you need to find a proper trash can), several wipe-pouches like Wet-Ones for cleaning yourself up, tooth cleansing wipes like Spiffies (found online and at Longs Drugs), original Altoids, tissues, and an odorless, flavorless lipstick or gloss for restoring your dignity. I normally love MAC lip color, but when I had morning sickness, the scent and taste that used to remind me of a hint of peppermint Tic-Tac suddenly blossomed into a head-pounding explosion of fake vanilla cologne like what all the sorority girls would wear at my university in the early nineties. I really liked (and still like) both the Stila lip glaze and the Neutrogena gloss that come with a sponge applicator, which has the benefit of not needing any precision, just the ability to hit your mouth somewhere and rub your lips together.

Now, I didn’t want to mention the last part of the PIP-pack before now for fear of freaking you out, but there is a third component that you should keep in your car: the “ain’t just a dab of lipstick gonna fix this mess” kit. This is for IF you should be overcome so suddenly and violently that you don’t make it to your damage-control kit, and it also covers an in-the-car situation. Pack a roll of paper towels and a bottle of upholstery cleaner appropriate for your car, an old towel for putting in the window while you change your clothes and for sitting on after you clean your seat, a change of clothes, including undergarments in case things soaked through, and a large plastic bag for holding your sodden clothes on the way home.

I speak all of this wisdom from the first PIP experience of drenching myself and the back seat of my car in cheese omelet after brunch with my parents, and having to book it to the nearest mall to get to a sink for a demoralizing cranked-paper-towel bath and hair rinse while my mom bought an outfit, bra and underwear (I meant it when I said drenched) at The Gap, and my Dad and husband performed the haz-mat duties on the minivan. It blew nearly $150 and an hour of our day. I puked in public about a half-dozen times after that over the course of two pregnancies – seriously, damn you, caramel corn! – and the PIP pack made these incidents far less humiliating; even the ones that occurred when people noticed.

It sounds horrific now, and you’ll never find it pleasant, but soon you’re going to be so inured to puke – first your own and then your baby’s – that you’ll be unflinchingly wearing it on your shirt for better parts of the day! But not in public.