My Kinda Bathroom

One of my favorite things in life is free tampons in a public bathroom. This is a rare occurence, and to be honest I don't know that I've ever encountered this when I actually needed one, but I'll be honest again when I tell you I am wont to take one for later.

 

 

Amsterdam

 

 

 

Paul Pilfer and the Pad

Back in 1989, in seventh grade and changing classes every hour and having lockers:

And having braces and discovering vintage Star Trek and finally getting that Esprit item...

I got my first period.

Even though I had three older sisters and a mom, I wasn't asking any questions, because as "they" so clearly explained to me, your period is a terrifying gushing blast of red blood that will attract dogs and bears and have you holed up inside your house with the curtains drawn for 5-7 days, sitting on a giant pad, beating yourself in lamentation. In other words, when you get it you'll know. 

And so when I had a week of what appeared in my underwear to be the remnants of a bunch of juicy farts because of their hint of a faint brownness I didn't think anything of it. But then eventually of course the brown turned into red. I was pretty humiliated, and then finally confessed to my older sister Kelly, explaining to her that "I thought it was just juicy farts!" At her behest, I put on this gigantic wingless maxi and got about the business of being a woman. 

At school the next day, I felt sure that everybody was going to "know". The pads in those days were so huge and I didn't have any pad-hiding pants. But I put on my longest shirt and didn't tuck it in and hoped for the best. I was especially worried about Paul Pilfer. That's not his real name, (I don't want the poor guy to Google himself and find this story out here on the Internet! He's a military dentist now for Gosh sakes!) but it's pretty close to his real name. Change the P in the last name to an H and you've got it! Anyway, he and I grew up with our lockers next to each other what with our last names being so close alphabetically. And this was at that age where he and I would friendly-but-flirtily goof on each other. For example, when I was on one knee getting my books or a backpack out of the bottom of my locker, and Paul was standing at his locker, I would elbow him in the butt, and vice versa. 

You can probably see where I'm going here.

My first day being a woman at school, I got to my locker and there was Paul Pilfer (except his last name begins with an 'H'), down on one knee. I prayed he wouldn't do it. I begged. 

Of course he did it. And got me right square in the pad. And to this very day, some 25 years later I can still hear in my mind the very audible *scwintch* sound it made.

My Favorite Things, Vol. 2

I shared a complete list of my favorite things last November, but unfortunately I could only think of one thing (Old Dutch dill pickle chips). Well tonight I thought of another thing to add to my list of favorite things! And here it is!

Free tampons in public restrooms!

They just put them out! Anybody can have one!

MBNVIP

You guys, I certainly don't want to toot any horns, but at my new job I'm an MBNVIP. It's a made-up-by-me-acronym and it means "marginally-but-not-very-important person" and that just means that I have the kind of cube where people come to ask me questions and that is just a made-up-by-me-explanation that basically makes it impossible for me to go on Facebook at work.

Are you following me so far?  MBNVIP.

Anyway, the other day after I sitting with a trainee in my cube for most of the morning, probably explaining something very complicated (or probably not that complicated) I happened to look over at my phone and saw this:

That's my purse and that's a bottle of generic Advil (if I haven't mentioned it I was in a terrible car crash) and most importantly that other thing is a renegade TAMPON which had decided to roll out to the place where people could see it. Of course I didn't see it until about 1pm.

I just really like to keep my period a secret, OK?

Hanna the Potter

My niece Hanna is quite a little potter. She basically spent her 11th and 12th grades of high school in the Pottery Studio, making infinite bowls and plates and coffee cups and tea pots and I gotta tell ya, her work has gotten pretty good. Sure, she's had her mishaps:

I still love this one! It holds all my earrings.

I use her stuff all the time! That one is where I keep my quarters for laundry and that one is where I put candy if I ever have any and that one I plan to have a bowl of soup in if I ever make any soup.

Aren't they great!?!

And this one just looks cool but sometimes a piece of mail will go in there until I can read it later:

OK. So. All that stuff is great, yes. But pictured below is my absolute favoritest piece of pottery that Hanna has ever given to me. And she didn't even intend for it to be used the way I use it, but I told her and she thought it was pretty AWESOME, as do I. As do I.

Looks perfectly innocent, doesn't it? Sitting there, so pretty on top of the toilet? (For photographic purposes I removed the roll of toilet paper, the candle, the matches, my flatiron, a hair tie, a pair of earrings and a bottle of hairspray.)

YES. So innocent.

Adorable.

HA!  You didn't guess, did you? It's nefarious purpose?  TAMPON HOLDER. Put in your orders now ladies and I'll see if I can't getcha one. Only $79.95 plus tax and shipping and handling and a finder's fee for me.

She did not pot the turtle.

It's Like They Don't Even Have any Rules For Themselves...

You ever been to this place? Just an old Minneapolis staple. A place to go dancing, see bands...made famous by the one and only Prince in a little-known movie called Purple Rain. And if the venue is little-known, this fact is well-known: the women's bathroom is a scary, germy place.

I went there last Saturday night to see a friend DJ, and I saw two women in the bathroom breaking two of my First Avenue rules:

Broken Rule # 1: Don't drink so much that you have to put your face in one of their toilets.

Broken Rule # 2: Never, EVER, put anything on the floor or touch any of your body parts to any of the parts of the bathroom stall. And you certainly don't EMPTY YOUR PURSE ONTO THE FLOOR NEXT TO A URINE PUDDLE EVEN IF YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO FIND A TAMPON.

One Time, on the Band Bus

Back in 8th grade, we band kids had to take a bus from the high school over to the middle school for band practice.  My buddies at the time were Tara and Beth and we had lots of adventures on that bus.

For example, one day we got it in our heads that we were going to play a mean mean joke on our other friend Petrina.  It was brilliant.  You see, the high school sold tampons and pads that came in cardboard boxes for 25 cents.  Well, the middle school had machines that sold them for 10.  So the three of us brought every single dime we could find to school one day and Tara brought her backpack to band and we completely filled it up.  The plan was that we would fill Petrina's locker so full with pads and tampons that when she opened it they would all fall out and she would be embarrassed and everybody would think she had her period!  (p.s. that plan went off without a hitch.  In fact some of the pads slid across the hallway into the senior Accounting class.  Success!)  What a bunch of bullies.  Anyway, we got the pads and tampons and on the bus on the way back to the high school I loudly asked Tara what was in her backpack.  "NO." she glared at me, begging.  

"Seriously, what's the backpack for Tara?"  

Beth and I were dying and so was Tara but not from laughing when I opened her backpack and showed the whole bus what Tara had in her backpack.  I think that was the one and only time she ever swore at me.

Another time I was sitting with my forehead on the bus window looking out, and maybe it was raining, and the Bette Midler song "From a Distance" happened to be playing on the radio.  I was absent-mindedly but seriously and pensively singing it quietly out the window.  Beth and Tara thought that was hilarious and made everybody on the bus silently come and look and I never noticed them because I was so into the singing.  I'm not sure I ever recovered from that one and I still sort of recoil in horror thinking about singing "God is Watching Us" repeatedly, over and over a thousand times out the band bus window.

Years later I found out that Beth's saxophone mouthpiece was broken and the entire year we were busing back and forth to band practice she was just pretending to play.

One day we got a special treat and went to Dairy Queen.  We pulled the bus right up next to a couple of guys in a sweet red convertible.  Beth slid the big yellow school bus window down, looked at the two guys, and shouted a line I still use to this day when-I-pull-up-next-to-anybody-in-a-car-cooler-than-mine,

"Hey!  Want a ride?"

Guest Post: My Embarrassing Tampon Story

From my Sister Kim:

Our front yard was visible from at least 30 apartments as well as the neighboring houses.  Once, I was wrestling on the front lawn while neighbor kids and family were hanging around.  I was wearing an adorable pair of powder pink painter pants that had a long, skinny tool pocket down the leg.  It was a perfect sized pocket to store o.b. tampons.  Or so I thought.
One of the tampons fell out of the pocket.  I didn't see it until one of the neighbor kids was holding it up waving it, and yelling, “Hey, Kim, do you smoke?! I didn’t know you smoked!!”

Care to share an embarrassing tampon story in the comments?  (Of course you can remain anonymous, but you'll get 1 Million extra points for identifying yourself.)

Misery Loves Company (slash) Imitate the Statue, Vol. 3

You may recall that about a year ago I met my Annie Wilkes.  My number one fan, just like from the movie Misery.  Well, the one, the only, the fabulous Blog fan Lisa* (names have not been changed) lives in Tucson, Arizona!

So when I heard that I would be working there for a water meter assignment, I contacted Lisa, who helped Summer and I secure the house we're renting.  We arranged everything days before arriving, so we needed somebody in Tucson to receive the Fed-ex package with the keys, etc., and Lisa was our girl!

We were driving from Albuquerque, Summer had a paper due and we were late getting into town, so we didn't have any time to waste picking up the keys.  Lisa understood and offered to meet us on the side of the freeway.

If I hadn't already met and fallen in love with her, if she weren't a friend of a very good friend of my sister's...it might have been a very strange and scary scene:

• Blog stalker offers to help find housing
• Blog stalker offers to receive keys to new apartment
• Blog stalker in fact receives and has possession of keys to new apartment
• Blog stalker offers to meet late at night on the side of the road next to a highway
• Blog stalker distracts Blogger with praise for blog
• Blog stalker stabs Blogger 37 times in chest and abdomen
• Blog stalker leaves Blogger to bleed out on side of highway
• Blog goes unupdated from that point on, leaving tens of other fans disappointed and confused     

But that's not how it went.  We met, we hugged, we laughed, we got Summer involved, we got the keys...and settled in to Oro Valley.

A few days later Lisa hooked us up with her good friend Roxanne* (names have not been changed) who graciously brought us to the Seguaro (pronounced Seh-wah-roh) National Monument just minutes from our town.

Those are saguaros.  There are millions of them in this National Forest.  Millions.  

Roxanne is hilarious.  She has a story of how she had told her husband that the reason she was putting on her nice underwear/bra combo was because she was going to the dermatologist.  He was confused, because it was for an above-the-neck skin appointment.  "And you have to undress for that?"  "Yes," she said, "he has me completely undress and lay on the table and then he looks at the skin on my face.  What?  Is that weird?"

This is the only photo I have of her, as she prefers to be photographed from behind:

I knew I loved her when she told me that she also likes to pretend to use a tampon for chapstick....but I really, really, really love people who participate when I have a ridiculous photo idea.

Kelly and the Tampons

Yesterday at work, I went to the co-ed employee bathroom.  Whilst in there, I noticed a tampon applicator in the garbage.  The paper here, the applicator there...with no effort whatsoever to cover them up.  No toilet tissue wrapping, no shoving it down in the garbage, no nothing.

It wasn't mine.  But somebody might see me leave the bathroom...and think it was mine.  So here I was, shoving paper towel on top of it and smooshing it down into the bin.  And I didn't even do it! 

Part of being a woman around a bunch of guys is accepting the fact that the assumption will be...the tampon is yours.

Consider the following story.  When Kelly bought her first house, she right away (within the first month) had an issue with the septic and invited a bunch of guys over to dig it up and fix it.  She was playing hostess, and went out to serve lemonade on a tray to all the workers.  All of the men were standing over the hole in the ground, staring.  As she approached, they looked at her, disgusted, like she was the most grossest, stupidest person in the world.  She didn't get it until she saw what they saw in the hole:

Hundreds and thousands and millions and trillions of tampons.  Completely filling the hole in the ground.  She was horrified.  But it wasn't her!  Logically, you can't produce that many in just one month!  Try explaining that to a bunch of dudes.  She just shrugged her shoulders and went back in the house, branded forever the girl who flushes tons of tampons.

Hanna's Dream. Warning: Gross

Skype conversation between my 16-year-old niece Hanna and me:


[2:04:08 PM] Hanna: wanna hear about a dream I had last night?

[2:04:40 PM] Kady: mary poppins?

[2:04:48 PM] Hanna: no

[2:04:59 PM] Hanna: I was riding the school bus.  A girl named Marissa who used to ride my bus was on the bus and had an Agatha Christie book, and in the book Miss Marple solves the mystery and discovers who the crook is because she discovers that a man is actually a woman, which she discovers by finding a bloody tampon in the toilet in the men's bathroom.

[2:06:41 PM] Kady: now that's good detecting

[2:06:47 PM] Hanna: so in the book there was an illustration of Miss Marple peering into a toilet filled with bloody tampons

[2:07:01 PM] Kady: hahahaha  "I always catch my man. Even when he's a woman."

[2:07:25 PM] Hanna: the bus driver got disgusted by this picture and forced Marissa to throw the book away, he thought it was inapropriate.  I saved the book from the trash and gave it back to her because I really liked Agatha Christie books.  Then we had a good laugh over men and tampons and how silly they are about it



HILARIOUS.  And yes, men are very silly about tampons.  For a good example of this, do yourself a weird favor and click here.

Friends Don't Let Friends Smoke Tampons?

One of my favorite party tricks is to take out a tampon and hold it up like Groucho Marx's cigar and talk like the Vlassic Pickle Stork and...well, it's HILARIOUS.  In my mind. 

The night I graduated from college (with a 2-year degree that took me 13 years to obtain BOO-YA), some friends and I went out for a little mini celebration afterward.  One particular friend, who I'll call "Alason" (her real name) had probably seen the aforementioned joke one-too-many times, because when I reached into my purse...she knew what was coming.  And then, in an attempt to prevent my humiliation she said, simply, and quietly enough for only me to hear: 

"Kady.  Don't Stoop."

"You know what would be hilarious right now?  A tampon cigar."

Getting Googled Vol. 3

Search the following, and find me!


"Using woman's tampon as deer lure"

"Horse fart on command"

"Mom in dad pee"

"Pee pee pants"

"Tampons AND deer"

"Super bad things in Guatemala"

Living with your Male Cousin

I lived with my cousin Ryan for a lot of years, and one of the things about him was that he didn't have a ton of experience living with women.  Take for example the time that he gave me the silent treatment for about a week.  I couldn't take it anymore, and so finally I asked him, "What the heck is going on with you?" And he blurted out, "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD PUT A BLOODY PAD IN THE GARBAGE!!" I was like, "what are you TALKING about?!" (I don't even use pads.) And then after much consideration, I realized that it was because he mistook the cotton ball I used to remove my red nail polish and then threw in the bathroom garbage for a discarded bloody pad.

I had to explain to him, that seriously, first of all: actual bloody period pads are not 2 1/2" in diameter, circular-shaped items.  Secondly they do not have a tiny smidge of bright red on them.  (In actuality, the red doesn't stay bright red, it turns gross brown immediately.)  Secondly, if I'm making chore charts to ensure that the carpet is getting vacuumed regularly, and washer-and-dryer are being wiped down twice monthly, I'm just not a likely candidate for someone who would leave a bloody pad, face-up in the garbage for all to see. 

Perhaps I should have used a huge piece of note-paper, as Ryan did one morning to notify me of a special present he had left behind:

"Dearest Cousin Kady, Beneath this lid you will find a log of gigantic proportions, Guiness Book of World Records in Fact.  If you do not wish to view this atrocity, please flush and go about your normal day."

Me and Cousin Ryan.  So innocent before the pad conversation.

Lil' Lesson in Geography

So here's a little map of Central America, to show where Nicaragua is. 

And below is a close-up map of actual Nicaragua.  I am flying into Managua (in the West) on Sunday.  My roomates (Bridget and two others) are going to take me to Granada, which is on that bigger lake.  We are going to stay in a rented house for about 4 days, and then head up to Esteli, which is straight north of Managua.  I have friends in Leon, so I hope to visit there as well.  I will stay in Esteli with the same three roommates until the end of November, when I will take a bus ride down to Costa Rica to stay for two months with Nicole, who is from California but is spending a year in Costa Rica.

It is the rainy season right now, but that should clear up in November.  The weather is hot and humid.  There is an active volcano you can hike right up to.  Specific brands of tampons are hard to come by.  And, now you officially know as much about Nicaragua as I do.

Kady Hexum Got Grossed Out

Not possible, I know.  But tonight I heard a real doozie at the Lodge.  APPARENTLY, in Southern Indiana and other parts unknown in this country there are MEN who FREEZE bloody TAMPONS and thaw them out when it's time to go deer hunting.  Then they tie them to tree limbs and wait for the big bucks to come in.  These poor bucks think there's a doe having her embarrassing time and they go NUTS.  And then the hunters shoot the big bucks.  When I heard this story I buried my head in my hands.  I could not believe it.  GROSS!

I have a few questions:

1. What woman saves her used tampons for this purpose, or any other?
2. How do these women give the used tampons to the hunting men?  Ziplock baggies?  Tupperware?
3. Where are they frozen?  The kitchen freezer, alongside popsicles and brocolli?
4. Does the hunting man touch the bloody tampon with his bare fingers?  To tie it to the tree?
5. Where does the bloody tampon go once the deer is shot?  Do they remain in the tree for all eternity?
6. Just how many bloody tampons does it take to lure a male deer?
7. Why do men, when talking about tampons, always call them "Tampax"?
8. Why can't I stop thinking about this?

Oh, Hilarious Tampons

One of my very favorite tricks:  When somebody asks me to borrow a mint, or chapstick, or a pen...I hand them a tampon instead and wait for their reaction once they have it in their hand and figure out what it is.

Malaysia - In the News

Volunteers picked up rubbish along the seafront off Penang's Gurney Drive in conjunction with Earth Day.  6.4 tons of rubbish from a refrigerator to a bulldozer tire were collected from the island's beaches.  Volunteers also picked up 51 condoms, 128 diapers, 222 tampons and 53 syringes during a four-hour clean-up.

I love that they counted the condoms, diapers, tampons and syringes.  Do you think there was a special tampon bucket, diaper bucket, etc?  Or do you think they just mentally took a tally?  Or do you think at the beginning of the day, the organizers said, "now remember to note how many condoms you pick up today."

Also, there were allegations that candidate Datuk Zaid Ibrahim had, in his past, drank.  He owned up to the mistake made in the past, but said that his drinking days are over.  He also said he knew of leaders who had done this and that but he would not name names.  "If the Hulu Selangor people punish me for being sincere, then I will accept the punishment," he said.

Bathroom scare

Last night I went into my favorite toilet in the dorm share/pool bathroom.  It's my favorite because there usually aren't geckos in it, there's usually toilet paper, and because of this I overlook the fact that there's usually about a quarter-inch of water on the floor and the lock is really hard to operate. 

So anyways you have to push the door shut, putting your left hand next to the bolt action lock, and use your right hand to JAM JAM JAM JAM JAM JAM JAM it until it closes.  And even then it only sort of just touches the other part of the lock slightly and so you have to worry that somebody will bust in anyways.

I really jammed my finger last night.  But that happens every time.  So I decided to squat and not sit, even though it's totally a sittable toilet.  I just didn't happen to be in a sitting mood.  As you squat you look at the floor and as I looked at the floor I saw three drips of blood.  I totally panicked for obvious reasons, one being that I totes wouldn't be allowed into any temples:

And then I noticed that my finger was gushing blood and laughed at myself out loud in my favorite toilet stall.

I Guess I'm the Tampon Lady

A friend just emailed me and told me that he passed the tampon aisle at Walmart the other day and thought of me.

Which reminded me of yet another tampon story:

I was just in that aisle the other day (no reason) and a man was standing there staring at all the products, sticky note in hand, looking completely lost. So first I laughed at him, and then as a joke, I told him to let me know if he needed any help. Clearly his wife had given him specific instructions and he couldn't find the right ones. He leaned over and read from the sticky note in a whisper, "I'm looking for Tucks Pads". "OH!" I exclaimed, "those aren't in this aisle..." I hesistated, but then went on, "you know that's for hemerhhoids, right?" And he whispered back, "I know."