Advice, please - My inhaler ate my TB bag

[UpToNoGood]

Unfortunately, you read that right. Historically when I leave my house it's either with my l'il ole SE or simply my keys clipped to my Chums Marsupial wallet (I love that thing). Sometimes my phone comes with me, sometimes not.

Fast forward to the point where I have recently developed runner's asthma (who knew this was a thing?!). Since I'm not giving up running, I'm now lugging a surprisingly large (albuterol) inhaler everywhere in a mini Q-kit. And that is the straw that broke the SE's back.

Once I put that Q-kit in my SE, along with my wallet, keys, and the basics of a Larabar, eyedrops, and microscopic notepad, I basically have to force the bag shut to the point that I'm worried about busting the zipper. So, that's a problem.

Surely, I thought, a cubelet could handle the trinity of just the inhaler, my keys, and my wallet. (I could empty the SE, but I don't want to have a bag that big on me at all times. I'm envisioning using a cubelet-esque type bag 24/7, so I want something small and light enough to throw in my running backpack (Nathan vest) whenever I head out the door.

Long story short, these three were also a tight fit in the cubelet. I then started to look at the Haiku mini pouch (https://haikubags.com/pouch.html), but it's the same size. All I want to do is breathe. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[G42]

Have you tried the Travel Cubelet? It's vertical vs horizontal, but at 1.7L its a tad larger than the 1.5L Side Effect...might be just the smidge you need, depending on the shape of what you carry.

Another option on top of that, if you want to be able to add a bit of additional room as needed, is to attach a Cubelet to the o-rings of the Travel Cubelet and gain an additional 0.6L of space.

If I'm reading the sizing right, the Haiku mini is only 0.9 L, so it's smaller than what you already have...

Jumping to the Side Kick gets you to 3L, but you don't sound like you want to go much bigger...?

ETA: I see I may not be responding to what you're really asking... are you looking for what can carry all your stuff or just the inhaler/keys/wallet? If just the three, maybe a small Travel Stuff Sack or a small Ghost Whale, depending on how big the inhaler actually is....

[UpToNoGood]

Correct, I don't want to go bigger than the cublet than I really have to. That being said, I have thought about the TC. I'm not a huge fan of north-south bags because the straps on them seem to chafe against my shoulder and neck sometimes, but maybe I need to reconsider in this. I do love your idea of clipping a cubelet to a TC and may get a TC to pair with my cubelet just to see how it works out.

I'm leaving out the GW and TSS in this case because I do want straps for crossbody carry.

[G42]

Here's a post from last year where I showed a Cubelet attached to a Travel Cubelet with Nite-Ize S-biners... I wouldn't put a gold brick into the Cubelet hanging from the o-rings, but for lighter loads, it's fine.
Putting heavier items in the TC makes the whole set up hang better too.
I've only done this a handful of times, because I have 3 Side Kicks that get jealous if I fiddle with the TC's too much
When I did do it, I usually put tissues, wipes, mints, lip balm in the Cubelet and my water bottle, keys, etc. in the TC

https://forums.tombihn.com/photos-vi...tml#post155858

[Lia]

Asthma changed my whole bag situation. Everything had to fit the inhaler, which meant "minimal" bags were 20% bigger than pre-asthma.

If your bags are full, you may just need to size up to make room for a new item.

On a run, I would often just carry my inhaler in my hand. As months go by, I collected inhalers and scattered them around my life... One in the car, the office, the nightstand, the purse. That way, you don't have to have the one and only inhaler in its place like your driver's license. Makes life easier.

[TheLibrarian]

What I did at the gym was take a hair elastic and loop it around the fat part (where you take part of the tie and loop it through the other end around the object, hope that makes sense). This gives it an attachment point which you could secure to an arm band (or shorts, sports bra strap, water bottle, or ?) for hands free carrying.

Or you can do what I did and move home to California for a 3 or 4 years. Cleared my asthma right up! (.....Well, for the most part at least, lol.)

[moriond]

Unfortunately, you read that right. Historically when I leave my house it's either with my l'il ole SE or simply my keys clipped to my Chums Marsupial wallet (I love that thing). Sometimes my phone comes with me, sometimes not.

Fast forward to the point where I have recently developed runner's asthma (who knew this was a thing?!). Since I'm not giving up running, I'm now lugging a surprisingly large (albuterol) inhaler everywhere in a mini Q-kit. And that is the straw that broke the SE's back.

Once I put that Q-kit in my SE, along with my wallet, keys, and the basics of a Larabar, eyedrops, and microscopic notepad, I basically have to force the bag shut to the point that I'm worried about busting the zipper. So, that's a problem.

Surely, I thought, a cubelet could handle the trinity of just the inhaler, my keys, and my wallet. (I could empty the SE, but I don't want to have a bag that big on me at all times. I'm envisioning using a cubelet-esque type bag 24/7, so I want something small and light enough to throw in my running backpack (Nathan vest) whenever I head out the door.

Long story short, these three were also a tight fit in the cubelet. I then started to look at the Haiku mini pouch (https://haikubags.com/pouch.html), but it's the same size. All I want to do is breathe. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hi @UpToNoGood and @Lia,

Are you looking for a way to carry the inhaler outside the Side Effect -- for example, on a shoulder strap? There's a way to rig this (on either the 5/8" strap or on the 1" shoulder strap), but it would take a little more time for me to post details. (Also, I'm thinking that if you're running, you wouldn't want to carry your SE on a shoulder strap).

What I did at the gym was take a hair elastic and loop it around the fat part (where you take part of the tie and loop it through the other end around the object, hope that makes sense). This gives it an attachment point which you could secure to an arm band (or shorts, sports bra strap, water bottle, or ?) for hands free carrying.

Or you can do what I did and move home to California for a 3 or 4 years. Cleared my asthma right up! (.....Well, for the most part at least, lol.)

Here's my suggested solution. Move other (flatter) contents in your Side Effect outside of the bag, and attach a Small Ghost Whale Organizer Pouch to the outside with a hair band. I'm suggesting the Smalll GWOP because it is flat, nearly the length of the Side Effect (so it sits well against the Side Effect and is also easy to hold), and you can also secure the Snap Hook on the pouch to the O-ring on one end of the Side Effect. I'll even post the product brand and inventory code that I used for this (Conair Hair Accessories for Women | Scunci®, 39545-A -- it was on clearance at Long's Drug Store 2 weeks ago).



Here's a picture showing the setup (with the headband turned so that the color strip is on the inside, and around the Side Effect). This is the Side Effect in Original Halcyon/Wasabi (the earliest current SE versions have cord pulls instead of gun metal grey zipper pulls -- I prefer this). A small Dawn Ghost Whale Organizer Pouch is tethered by its snaphook to the right side of the SE. (It's holding my glasses in a case, but you could put anything else in there). A couple of other flat, elastic headbands are shown vertically and horizontally in the picture.

Above the Side Effect is a Mini Q-Kit and Inhaler that would fit inside it. I've inverted the Q-Kit so that you can see the TB label tab at the bottom, and the Snaphook with its connect at the top. It's possible to use these two connector points to secure the Mini Q-Kit to a shoulder strap -- even to the 5/8 inch shoulder strap, although I prefer to use the 1" Shoulder Strap with the Side Effect. You could attach the label tab of the Mini Q-Kit to the TB label tab at the base of the Shoulder Strap. The snaphook end can be secured by clipping the loop end of the snaphook attachment around the Shoulder strap. The inhaler (if it is the size I show in the picture) is light enough to carry stably on the shoulder strap.

But you can probably get away with just strapping the Small GWOP to the outside, transferring contents that are relatively flat to the GWOP, and then have enough room inside the SE to carry everything that you need.

HTH

moriobnd

ETA: I'm not using the elastic bands for the SE -- they are about the right size to work around an A5 notebook. See, for example the pictures that I posted for sketchbooks carried in the Field Journal Notebook. (Levenger used to make a set of elastic bands that were well suited for this, but now they only have single bands)





(From Benefits of the Field Journal over Midori?)