lobsterchick's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- or, Hm, I have an Extra Piece Here My tampon story, inspired by April. It really had never occurred to me to try tampons. I wasn't necessarily afraid or apprehensive, I had just latched onto the Kotex at the first sign of my "Aunt Flo," and never looked back. Now that I think about that, I cringe. Kotex are possibly the worst maxi-pads on the planet, and these days I am strictly an Always/Tampax Pearl girl (mostly Always, to be honest; I have issues about tampons that will be addressed in another entry). Back to my story. Pads served me fine for the first year or so of my period. Then, I got my period on the day that I was going on a Girl Scout trip, which was to include a day at a water park. Kotex was gonna have to stay behind. It was summer, and my cousin Sandy was staying at our house. I woke up early, in time to catch my sister Brownie before she left for her shift at McDonald's. "What do I do?" I whispered, near tears. She gave me a box of tampons, but being an experienced user, didn't have the elaborately-drawn instructions anymore. "Do you know how to use it?" "I...think so." "Okay." And off she buzzed to work. I took the fateful steps into the bathroom, and opened the package. I had no clue how to work the crazy plastic ballpoint-pen-looking thing, and I wasn't entirely sure where to put it. A little feeling around answered the second part, but I still wasn't sure exactly how to, um... operate it. Finally I decided to pull out the thinner part of the plastic applicator, and just cram the rest inside of me. Hm. Wonder why that plastic part is called an applicator, anyhow. My cousin sat outside the door, nervously awaiting the results. I threw the half of the applicator away, washed my hands, and waddled triumphantly out. "Done!" "Can you feel it?" "Yes." "They say you're not supposed to be able to." "Well, I do," I said, trying to be nonchalant. The phone rang, and I grabbed it. It was Brownie, whispering to me, in McDonald's, about tampons. "Did you do it?" "Yes." "Can you feel it?" "Yes." "What? No. Then you did it wrong." "Is there supposed to be plastic... um, you know, inside me?" Barely suppressing her laughter, she answered, "No. Get that out of there, and find another Girl Scout to tell you how to do it." "Oh. Okay." Like I was going to admit to the girls in my troop I had no idea what was going on. But I went into the bathroom, carefully yanked my makeshift contraption out (yow!) and threw it away. I changed into the old standby Kotex, and on the hour and a half drive to the house we were staying in, comforted myself with the knowledge, confidently imparted by YM Magazine, that menstrual flow stopped in water. Or was it my friend Laura who had told me that? No matter, I was sure it was true. Shockingly, this is one time my body decided not to embarrass me. It could have, at this point, turned into a "Say Anything"/"Trauma Rama" moment, with me sailing down the water slide with a crimson streak blazing behind me. But my period stayed imperceptibly light until the next day, when, fortunately, no water parks were on the agenda. When I got home, Brownie listened in horror, took a tampon out of the box, and showed me (without actually doing it) how to, as she put it, "shoot it up in there." Quite a revelation, tell you what. And way more informative than that crazy "woman with her foot on the toilet, inserting tampon into her transparent body" diagram. And more entertaining, as well. 11:06 PM - 26 April 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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