Tampon Talk

First there was Church Chat, now there's Tampon Talk! Hope you don't think I'm too gross, but it just so happens that tampons are the common thread (string) here.

Let's start with this season's Real World. Young people have always been fascinating to me - even when I was a young person - but moreso now that I supervise young people at work and am thinking of bearing a child who will, presumably, become a young person at some point. "The Young People" (as Honey Bunny calls them) in this context, are roughly aged 16 - 25, for those who are wondering.

The Real World Cancun's Young People have been extra fun to observe in their unnaturally luxurious habitat. Back in my day as a youngster, our issues amounted to nothing more than excess drinking and sleeping with the wrong person. These days, the excess drinking is just the jumping off point. Now there are mental health issues (bulemia, cutting, unhealthy fixations with guns, zombies and the military) (don't ask!), adventures in bisexuality, threesomes, and talk about sleeping with the wrong person! How about ending up in bed with your mortal enemy? Who teased and taunted you in front of your roommates, friends and coworkers for weeks on end about your very un-funny mental health issues?

Said mortal enemy got an unexpected smack down on the token reunion show after the season wrapped. When douche nozzle cast member Joey asked sensitive drama queen Emilee (daughter of therapists, natch) if she was on her period after she ranted about his bad-boy behavior, she snottily replied, "I'm not on my period, Joey, but if I were, I'd take my tampon out right now and slap you across the face with it."

Awesome! I wish I'd had such imagination when I was a Young Person. It actually caused me to jump up off the couch whooping with laughter, rewind and watch it again, run into the bathroom where Honey Bunny was in the bath to tell him about it, make him get out of the tub to come watch it where all he did was roll his eyes and pad with wet feet and towel back to the bath. And yet, I'm still laughing about it and still wanting to share the magic.

Next up we have a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, who had... an odor. A very unfortunate odor, and discharge too, coming from down yonder for two straight weeks. I kept encouraging Friend to go to the gynecologist or, at the very least, talk to an advice nurse, but she was unwilling because she was embarassed.

On Monday she called to tell me the source of the odor had been identified. "I went to wipe this morning and there was a string," she said. Gulp. Her period had ended two and a half weeks prior. I'll spare you the (gory) details. At that point, I really encouraged her to visit the gyno to make sure everything was ok, but again she resisted. A friend can only encourage an ObGyn visit so much, eh?

Then she text messaged me yesterday, while I was in a meeting: "I smell so much better!" If I could have, I would have jumped up out of my conference room chair and whooped with laughter, and shared her text and story with my favorite female coworkers.

As it happens, something similar happened to me when I was a Really Drunk Young Person. Somehow in the middle of the night, in a dark porta-potty while camping, I thought I did a replacement manuever but instead ended up with a, um, "double decker situation". Next morning as my head was pounding and stomach churning, I shuffled back up to the porta-potties, sat down, and had to ask myself, "Why are there two strings?" Nice.

Lastly, last week I had a scare/hope in which I thought I would get a respite from using tampons for the next nine months. Sadly, I don't get that respite. Thank you to those of you who listened to me rant and rave and be hopeful and be scared, so on and so forth. We'll see what happens in the future.