Thursday, July 3, 2008

Not So Happy 4th of July


I have a very unpleasant memory of the 4th of July. I guess I was about 12 years old and had just started my period. We were on one of our summer camping trips in the Winnebago.
Mom only let me wear pads. You know those 6 inch thick pads that were long enough to go from your belly button to your butt crack? You remember those? This was way before "wings". I don't even remember if they had sticky stuff on the back. They were so thick you could have used them for a pillow.
So, to make sure no one knew you were wearing these thick diaper pads, you would always wear a sweater or a sweatshirt tied around your waist...like no one noticed this was weird in July.
What a quandary...everyone was going swimming at the campground swimming pool but me. I couldn't go 'cause Flo was visiting and my pad was so huge and absorbent it would have sucked up all the pool water. What's a girl gonna do?
I finally broke down and asked my mom. She gave me a box of tampons and the instructions. I sat in the bathroom reading and looking at the directions...OK...I think I can do this, maybe.
After much hesitation, I put it in and off to the pool I went. Well, mom said it wouldn't hurt. But it did...and it kept getting worse and worse until I couldn't stand it any longer.
Finally,I couldn't take it any more. I was so embarrassed. I went and found my mom and told her what was going on. She asked me how I put it in and I told her...then she said..."You don't leave the cardboard part in too...you have to take that out and leave the cotton part in." DUH!
I am such a ding dong.
Speaking of "wings" and "sticky parts"...I gotta tell you this story. A couple of years ago, this elderly man was telling me he was having problems with urinary incontinence and had started wearing woman's sanitary pads so he wouldn't "wet" himself. He said one day he was in a bit of a hurry and he ripped off the back of the sticky pad and put it on...and then realized he put it on backwards. Said he only had a couple of hairs to start with but when he ripped that pad off he "cleaned his plow." True story.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lord have mercy!

Big Pissy said...

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!