Tampopos

This is the time of the semester when work really ramps up. I went from working less than ten hours a week to working about ten hours a day...but it will go back down after next Friday...and back up right around finals. Ironically when I'm working so much I feel really good on the making money and being a good worker/smart sound person/entertaining co-worker front, but things go totally crappy on the doing creative things/feeling rested/getting any homework done front. If I don't make any sense today, blame it on my lack of sleep.

Out of fatigue, today I'm going to use my a back-up story that I've been storing in my head and write about tampons. Yes, tampons. (Gentlemen, I understand if you want to avert your eyes, though I don't plan on going into any graphic details.) I didn't want to neglect the blog any longer, and I have to walk back to work in an hour or so. I could nap, but that's not very creative. Appealing...yes.

Girls (ahem--women): Remember when you were little, and tampons just seemed like the most awful idea ever? And pads seemed like a good idea until you realized that they were adult diapers? And then all of a sudden one day you sucked it up and tried tampons and they were a total revelation? Out of all of the inventions of the modern-day world, tampons are what make me glad to be a 21st century woman. Seriously, if not for the lack of tampons I would be totally willing to live in ancient Greece or 1955 or whenever. Tampons are the eighth wonder of the world, and if they had been invented back in ancient times they probably would have been hanging in the Gardens at Babylon.

Women: Remember when buying tampons was a totally mortifying experience? When a tampon falling out of your backpack would have been grounds for switching schools? I remember watching some sort of sex ed video in 5th or 6th grade where some girl gets her period and is walking around with a box of menstrual things and RUNS INTO HER CRUSH and he's cool with her big box of tamps. And I remember thinking, that is so totally unrealistic. And that's probably still true of high-schoolers, but now if I ran into my hypothetical crush while buying a big box of Super Plus Tampax Pearls (the best--I'm sorry, I know they're plastic and killing the Earth, but I love them anyway), I would find the situation hilarious, but not embarrassing.

I remember in books and sex ed tapes the girl would usually be pretty psyched about "becoming a woman" and her mom would want to throw a party or something. I was pretty much like, let's keep this on the DL (down-low), Moms. Both of my sisters were young-uns when I was pubertizing, and I...it sounds crazy but I don't remember thinking, "Oh, someday they'll be pubescers, too." It was more like, "Oh, they're going to think I'm a freak."

When I focus on my computer screen, the room feels like it's spinning. Kind of cool. Kind of a concern.

Growing up in Orange County, which is sort of the Bible Belt of Southern California, I had many friends who thought that wearing tampons was more or less akin to losing your virginity. That's pretty high on my personal internal scale of ludicrosity. One of my friends literally said, "I just don't know if I could go through with it [trying tampons]. Maybe if I got really drunk I'd be willing to try." Um, hello--it's not sex, it's a tampon. After you insert it you don't need to smoke a cigarette or get it to cuddle with you in bed. Am I alone here? The tamps will set you free, people! Haven't you ever seen the tampon ads with the girls in the bathing suits or wearing the prom dresses? It's all true! They're delightful! They're not scary or invented by the Devil! (FYI, the Devil keeps himself busy by inventing painful shoes and convincing shiteous people to audition for American Idol.)

When I was in high school I told my friend that I wanted to invent a line of tampons that would have really cute little wrappers to appeal to high schoolers. Well, Tampax Pearl totally stole my thunder and put little designs on their wrappers, and recently added several more colors and even cooler designs! Pretty much every good idea I've ever had has been instituted by someone else way before I was old enough to get the ball rolling. For example, I thought of the idea for the movie "Bicentennial Man" when I was a wee child. But whatever, I'll let Isaac Asimov have that one.

Recently on Jezebel there was a big debate over whether tamps ought to be flushed, and some people acted like it was a total given that flushing is okay. I always thought that they were supposed to be flushed until the day my sophomore year roommate (whom I almost never talked to) awkwardly informed me that she'd had to use her chopsticks to unclog the toilet while I was in class (this still brings much glee to my cruel little heart, because I had to act sorry but I really just wanted to laugh my stomach out). A guy I met once who worked with LA sanitation was like, you have no idea how badly the high school sewer lines get clogged, so for now I'm in the "don't flush" camp (I know, ew-- but did you know that some sorority houses have corroded pipes because of all of the acidic vomit?).

Okay, so by now you know that I am totally willing to talk about tampons. BUT recently I saw a scene in a movie that totally outraged me because I was like, "that is NOT realistic." The movie was "The Player," and in the scene Whoopi Goldberg plays a detective, and Tim Robbins in the suspect (and Lyle Lovett is some other quiet cop and he is kind of awesome but then he swats a fly and it's way too slapstick). Anyway, so Tim Robbins is sitting there waiting to answer questions about the murder (which he actually committed), and suddenly Whoopi starts loudly talking to her female co-worker. She says the following things, "Did you take my tampons?...Oh, here, I found my tampons...Oh wait, these aren't mine, I use the Supers," etc. She is pretty much waving the box in Tim's face. Then she unwraps one and swings it around by the string. I was watching this film in the class, and all the girls were going, "Oh no she didn't!" (Okay, I was leading the charge.)

First of all, if you have a client/suspect/man sitting at your desk, that is not the right moment to talk loudly about tampon usage and needs. Hypothetical tampon talk is okay in front of men, if you know them really well. Actual "can I have a tampon/I'm on my period" talk will skeeve guys out and is unnecessary. Unwrapping a tampon and swinging it around is beyond crazy. For one thing, tampons are crazy-expensive. At least 40 cents each. True story. Guys have no idea how much money they save by not having to buy tampons or makeup. Also, even though periods are not that bad, guys are totally clueless as to what it's like to deal with that. I just thank the Forces that Be for giving periods to women, because can you imagine if guys had periods? They'd probably be completely incapacitated. But anyway, that movie was writted by a man and directed by another man. They just don't understand. My professor actually said that the tone in that scene was so crazy that it almost sank the movie. Take that!

That was back in the day when tampons were in boring white wrappers.

But anyway, talking about tampons is totally liberating. Encourage your friends to use tampons. They will not lose their virtue. I cannot imagine being allergic to tampons. I shouldn't have said that--I don't want to jinx myself. I am going to go knock on all sorts of wood. Oh my gosh, best double entendre ever. (Upon rereading, there is at least one other totally unintentional instance of sexual imagery in this post...let me know what you find!)

I didn't think of it until after I typed it.

Oh, PS, I totally learned a new word the other day-- yonic. It's like the female (read: vaggy) equivalent of phallic.