This is a story for Margene. Her surgery has been postponed to Friday, so I just want to make sure to tell her that the old warning our mothers always gave us STILL HOLDS TRUE. Believe it.
I am not telling tales out of school by blabbing about this: Margene shared with us (you may have missed this, but I have a memory like an elephant), a long time ago in her "100 Things About Me" post, that she hates wearing underwear. We are personal friends and I know this is true -- she's always telling those around her that they, too, should try going commando. She's a girl from the '60s -- what can I tell ya? Go commando! The air feels nice! No pinching. No twisting. No elastic to press on the nerves or on the tops of the thighs. No panty lines! It's awesome.
TMI ALERT!
Me too sometimes. No, not ALL THE TIME. Now I just know that every time you see me, you'll be wondering. And of course that is EXACTLY WHY I'M WRITING THIS POST. Heh.
But there have been some times when this was a problem, and I just know you want to hear all about them, in excruciating detail.
Don't you?
Come on. Admit it.
1. I don't need to remind my Sisters of a Certain Age that our -- ahem -- times of the month are like, WHEN? WHERE? When was that last period? Didn't I just HAVE one last ---- Uh, when was that, again? It's a pain in the ass, even more than usual. Am I right? And of course it's always at the worst possible time when I'm visited by The Curse -- the day when I'm not anywhere near home, the two tampons I had in my purse have disintigrated and I've only just YESTERDAY cleaned out my purse and thrown them away, I have a packed schedule and can't get to a drug store, and all the tampon machines are not working, not stocked -- or worse, the new bathrooms don't even have them sometimes. What a great fiscally responsible and esthetic initiative that was. Really it IS more important to have beautiful artwork in the bathroom than having a tampon machine. I totally agree with that trend -- no, I really do! -- because women menstruating is soooooo last century.
Recently I visited Fletcher Allen Health Care's Breast Care Center for my routine mammogram. MEMO TO FAHC: Your public bathrooms don't have tampon machines! WHY?! Do we need to have a bake sale to raise money for the tampon dispensers? Or what?
I'm in trouble. I've unexpectedly started my period, I'm wearing a lightweight khaki-colored skirt, I have classes later in the day. But no problem, right? I'm in a top-rated women's health care facility. Surely they have tampons stuck behind their ears and falling out of file cabinets and in baskets like floral arrangements in the bathrooms.
Right?
Wrong. Not one sign of feminine hygiene products anywhere in the Breast Care Center's bathroom. We do breasts here, people -- NOT vaginas!
So I go back to the front desk. I'm doing the longest kegel of my life -- it should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, this kegel -- and I'm walking like I have the proverbial corncob up my...you know... while I say, "I've got a little problem. I need a tampon, like, TEN MINUTES AGO." I figure they'll swiftly hand me a tampon and I'll be on my way back to the sanctuary to take care of my leetle feminine emergency. The whole ordeal will be over quick as a wink, and no one will be the wiser. I know, RIGHT?
WRONG.
These women look at me like this problem has never, ever surfaced in their office before. They panic. They fidget. They back up their desk chairs and look like they're going to do something, but they don't quite know what it is they should do. They tell me there is the public hospital bathroom down the hall, just around the corner. Well, that is the same bathroom I use when I'm working in the med school, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a tampon-dispensing machine in it, but I rush over there anyway to check. Nope. I stuff toilet paper in my underwear, but this is a bit of a problem, because I'm wearing a thong. It doesn't hold much of anything, and what it does hold, it doesn't hold securely. I can just envision myself in an episode of I Love Lucy, a line of t.p. leaving a trail behind me as I walk. So I have to hold it in place with my thighs.
Back to the desk I go, with a wrinkle in my brow and still walking funny.
I ask all the women there if they perhaps have a tampon in their purses personally, that they could share with a woman in need. I'll PAY, people!
Most of them looked like deer caught in headlights, but the ones who did speak up, all said, "No, I don't have a TAMPON," delivered with that sort of "ew" voice like I might have just asked them to infect me with chlamydia. "I think I might have a pad." How is it that in 2009 I have walked into a women's health care facility in the U.S. of A., where all the women use PADS? PADS? Are you KIDDING ME? An "ew" response to tampons? I really had no idea there was this rampant tampon phobia alive and well around me, which just goes to show that if I thought I had my finger right on the pulse of modern femininity, I was apparently woefully wrong.
Anyhoo.
Seriously, this was exactly the situation. I'm not even exaggerating one tiny bit. A woman (a young girl, really, by my standards) went to get me a pad. And I had to tell her, "Um, I don't really have the right underwear on for a pad."
FINALLY, after that, someone came up with a tampon for me.
So there's lesson number one and a public service announcement all in one. This is important: Pack a tampon in your purse, but if you throw away your tampons, be sure to put a pair of granny panties in, too, JUST IN CASE YOU ENTER A WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE FACILITY STAFFED WITH ALL WOMEN, NONE OF WHOM USE TAMPONS.
Apparently I'm more of a hussy than I even realized. Read story number two, and any remaining doubt will be erased.
2. I recently had an appointment with a dermatologist for a full-body skin scan. Just routine, ya know, because a) I'm of a certain age which I have to keep admitting, and b) my siblings have had suspicious things removed, even though they are all younger than I am, so I figure it's time to have it done. Just as I'm leaving the house, I ask my husband to throw me a pair of knickers from the laundry pile that has just emerged from the dryer -- "I guess I should wear underwear today," I say jokingly, "though it won't matter in that office, because I'll be buck naked when they do the exam [Well, wouldn't YOU expect a full-body skin scan to be, well, you know -- FULL BODY?!] and nobody will know whether I have underwear on or not." I slipped the panties on just before I walked out the door.
I get to the office, and the nurse interviews me, asks me why I'm there, etc. I tell her just to have my skin and moles looked at by a professional, that my sibs have had some issues, so I just want to be sure everything is OK.
She tells me to get undressed, put on the gown with the opening in the front or the back -- my choice -- and she starts to leave the room. As she's at the door, she says, "Oh, and you can KEEP YOUR UNDERWEAR ON."
Semper ubi sub ubi.

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