“Holy shit. Did I forget to take out that last tampon?”
The phrase that strikes fear into the heart of any woman who has ever been so bored she actually read all of the literature that comes with the box of Tampax. You know, the pages and pages about how TSS is really bad and can actually KILL you. Because being a woman doesn’t already suck bad enough at that time of the month.
ANYway, I digress. Back to the point – me having total freak out moment of “holy shit did I forget to take a tampon out?”
I, of course, do what any woman does at that point. I go to the bathroom and check. Nothing. Nada. No string or nothing. (OMG I can’t believe I just mentioned the string. But then, this story is going to get way worse than string. You’ve been warned.)
Whew. Ok. I didn’t forget. Or… did I?
I am suddenly filled with fear as I remember all of the horror stories I have heard about women who have “lost” tampons. Ya know, in there. Like… wayyyyy in there. And do you know how they find out eventually that it was lost in there? Do you?? The odor. That’s how. (I told you this was going to get worse)
Insert complete and total freak out. Oh my God what if I didn’t just forget it, I LOST it. I KNOW I remember using one and I KNOW I did not take it out. I KNOW. Oh dear God please I cannot have The Odor! Or The Shock! Or The Death By Impaled Tampon! But especially The Odor!
I think this was the point where my husband heard me whimpering in the bathroom. Either that or he noticed it was taking a while and was getting tired of listening to my unattended IM window ding, ding, ding. Regardless, he came to investigate.
“Baby? Are you ok?”
Fuck. I instinctively knew that whatever happened over the next few minutes, my sex life was going to suffer permanent damage.
“Um, well, heh, I… uh… I think I lost a tampon. Like, lost it lost it.”
“Do you need help?” God bless his soul the man didn’t skip a beat, eager little beaver that he is.
“Hell no I don’t need help! Just bring me my purse.” He looks confused, and is apparently determined to stay put unless an explanation is offered, “I have a mirror in my purse. Bring me my damn purse. Please. Honey.”
I know I heard that fucker chuckle as he walked away to retrieve my purse.
“Here you go babe, are you sure you don’t need help?”
“Honey, I can handle this, thank you” and will you please God just go and leave me in peace with my little bit of dignity.
He leaves and I am alone with my magical compact. As I opened it I can’t help but think about all those feminist groups that advocate getting to “know yourself better” and embracing “your beautiful body, vagina and all”. And for the very first time in my life I am actually wishing I would have listened to those crazy bitches.
Because honestly? I have absolutely no idea what I’m looking for.
I mean, I’m looking in the mirror thinking “well, yeah, that’s a vagina I guess.” But I was absolutely horrified to realize that I had no fucking clue if it looked like it was supposed to. I couldn’t tell if there was anything extra, or missing, or slightly out of place. I am just not that god damned in touch with my vagina!!!
“Honey?!?!?!?!”
“Yes baby? Do you need help?”
“Well.. it’s just…. Oh My God Jared I have no idea what I’m looking for!!! Is this right? I mean, you’ve seen it. Look at it. Do you see anything there that isn’t supposed to be there?!”
How in the hell he didn’t break down into laughter, or utter horror, right then and there I do not know. And what happened next I just cannot bear to explain in graphic step by step detail
All I can say is… there was much poking. And prodding. And I think some pulling. And I remember very clearly thinking “dear God why doesn’t this hurt more? surely this should HURT!” and “Oh my God I am going to break my vagina!” And at one point he looked away and did this “blind man’s bluff” thing and explained “listen I just have to feel, ok? i know what i’m FEELING for, not what I’m LOOKING for”. And I believe at some point he may have chastised me a little and explained that if I had only been less resistant to more sex with more lights on he would probably be better prepared for just such a situation as this.
And isn’t that just like a man to bring up sex at a time like this? Pfft.
ANYway, long story short – we found nothing. Either of us. Despite, as my husband pointing out, feeling “around in there a lot”. Which left me feeling a little alot like a deep dark cave.
I came out of the bathroom feeling more than a little defeated. And horrified. And humiliated. And seriously concerned because maybe despite all the “looking around in there”, there was still something there that we just couldn’t FIND. Me being a deep dark cave and all.
Naturally, I turned to the Internet for salvation. I began looking up everything I could find on “lost tampons”. And oh boy was there alot to find. More about The Odor. And digging. And swiping. And circling. And using two fingers to “trap” a wayward tampon.
In short, the internet failed me. Seriously.
So, naturally, I called my mother. My mom is a nurse. And I assumed she would get in her car and coming rushing over to help me once she heard the panic in my voice.
“Mom! Mom! What are you doing right now? Oh my god MOMMY I THINK I BROKE MY VAGINA!”
“What? Who is this? I told you people to stop calling me!”
“Mom, no! It’s ME! I don’t know if I lost a tampon or not.”
“Well, sweetie, you’re going to have to feel around…”
“We DID! We HAVE! Mom we have poked and prodded and pushed and pulled and we have FELT I swear we have FELT!! And I’m not sure what the hell I am feeling for! Why did you never tell me I should be looking at my crotch in a mirror before NOW?!?!”
“We? He is helping you?” I can hear the bitch laughing.
Apparently so can my husband, and he tries (again) to help. “Ask her if we have sex if I’ll be able to tell”
“What the fuck? Sex? Are you KIDDING ME? You want to have SEX with me?!?!”
“Honey, tell him that won’t help. Listen, if there was something there you would know. You would have found it by now, I’m sure. And it would come out fairly easily. Especially with all that digging around in there.” (why does everyone keep using that phrase??!)
Thank God my mother’s phone died and I was left to ponder the injustice of it all on my own with no more absolutely useless advice. Or unnecessary giggling. Or having to listen to her tell my brother “yes, I’m talking to your sister, no, her vagina is going to be fine, yes, her vagina….”
Left with no other recourse and absolutely no energy left, I decided to call off the search party and head to bed. And as I lay there in the dark all I could think of was that damn Internet.
And how they tried to describe what you would be “feeling for”. According to the Internet, a vagina is kind of like a “tube sock” with a “hard donut at the top where your cervix is”.
The lost/not lost tampon was forgotten. My vagina had not felt like a tube sock. In fact, it had not felt like a super smooth tube at all really. It had felt like there was… dare I say… a “roll” in there or something.
Holy fuck, I thought, I have a fat vagina!
I have a fucking fat roll IN MY CROTCH!!
Three weeks of bad eating and this is what I get. It goes straight to your fucking hips my ASS!! Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you that french fries go straight to your BIG FAT VAGINA!!!!!!
And that, my friend, was the low point for me. When you realize that you may have broken your own vagina, and that you may have lost a tampon but you won’t know for a few days when The Odor rears it’s ugly head, and that even if you didn’t break it you still are left with a big fat fattie mcfatty vagina? I am telling you, you just don’t get any lower than that.
Thankfully, at some point, I realized that it just made sense that there had to be some…er… folds in there. I mean, when you take into consideration the whole idea of child birth and blah blah blah – it has to be like an accordion in there, kinda, right? (right. My mom the nurse did tell me that was right. thank God)
I also realized that after all of that “looking around in there”, it was very improbable that I had actually lost anything that would not have been found.
And also? Should anything truly horrific and shameful ever happen to you? You should immediately run to your blog and start writing up the longest post in the world.
Because shame and pride are seriously overrated anyway. Right?
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I hate the “bulky” feel of them, but I know that YOUR experience, would be my experience if I ever switched to tampons.
Robin H. Reply:
July 28th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
@jester, obviously you have no idea what I’m even talking about
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jester Reply:
July 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
@Robin H., Actually, I was a paramedic that worked in the ER. I know what you’re talking about.
That doesn’t change the fact that I now know more about your menstrual cycle than I should.
You lost me at “rotten smell.”
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