Disclaimer: Guys, I’m talking about lady business. So if you’re squeamish, skip this one.
I really don’t understand why women get so pissed off when their boyfriends/husbands/man friends ask them if they’re on their periods when they are being bitchy. 9 times out of 10, if I’m being little Miss Cunt-Faced McBitchMouth, it’s because I’m PMS’ing and, when Calm-Ass Husband reluctantly puts on his suit of armor and bravely asks, “Babe, are you going to start your period soon?” I can stop and say, “Oh yeah…..I am. Sorry.”
The tenth time, I grow blades out of my knuckles all Wolverine style and charge him with bile spewing out of my mouth. That’s when he realizes we are closer to the monthly D-day than he initially thought. Hence the armor.
Sidenote: Because Mother Nature is one fucked up bitch with a HI-larious sense of humor, my PMS-induced violent aggressiveness is also accompanied by hits of super-human horniness. So it’s not uncommon for the Calm-Ass Husband to get a text from me saying, “When we get home, I am going to ride you like I’m competing in the Amazing Race.” And then that text is followed up with, “And then I’m going to punch you square in the face.” He usually comes home looking both hopeful and terrified. At some point this is going to cultivate a phenomenon of “terror boners,” wherein he gets boners every time he is scared, which could make for an awkward situation should armed gunmen ever break into our home in the middle of the night and confront poor CAH.
I don’t really like the term PMS. I prefer the term “Hormone-loading.” Kind of like carbo-loading before a big marathon, us women like to hormone-load to refill our super powers of sub-human strength and extreme food consumption abilities.
The problem is that the makers of tampons and maxi pads do nothing to make this monthly trip to earth-hell any easier.
Seriously, what the fuck is this, Always?
Always, when I’m on my period, by the time I’ve put down the half-gallon of ice cream and potato chips, rolled my ass off the couch, pulled on my most forgiving pair of yoga pants and hoodie, and sluggishly elephant-stomp myself and my 7 extra pounds of water-weight to Walgreens to buy maxi pads, the last thing I need to see is how incredibly thin and active you are. If anything, rubbing that in my face will bring out one of the most dangerous super powers of hormone-loading: Hulk strength. Also, when my Hulk strength comes out, I have Hulk’s temper, and I will proceed to Hulk-smash every Always product in the aisle. And when all the poor Walgreens workers come running to restrain me, I will pump my fists in the air, screaming at the top of my lungs, shaking them all off effortlessly before I stomp my way to the candy aisle and double-fist Reese’s Peanut Butter cups into my angry Hulk mouth.
And what the HELL is this??
Limited Edition Radiant Collection? Always, unless you dipped these tampons in gold and had each one personally signed by Tory Burch so that when I use them I can make my husband call me “Golden Burch Cooch” (which is awesome and I may just make him do that anyways), you’re not fooling us. Do you really think us women are that stupid and naive that we are buying your Limited Edition Radiant Collection all, “Ooooo it’s Limited Edition Radiant Collection? I’m getting these a velvet dust cover and make a YouTube tampon-haul video”? It’s actually insulting. Because first of all, when we are on our periods, we are feeling anything but “radiant,” and trust me, the power of suggestion is not going to work when bloating has given us moonface, our skin has taken on the consistency of sandpaper, and our cravings are so fucked up that we will happily dump a jar of grape jelly into a tub of butter and spoonfeed ourselves (as an example….not saying I’ve actually done that….don’t fucking judge me, ok?).
And Walgreens, I have a beef with you too. For those of you men who were brave enough to stick with me through this bloody tale, I’ll let you in on some period industry knowledge. We choose our tampons based on grams of blue stuff it holds. By the way, we don’t actually bleed blue stuff, despite what all of the commercials would have you believe. It’s actually red like normal blood. But I can understand how years of believing that we bleed red everywhere else, and then inexplicably bleed blue out of our hoo-has would make this whole period thing weird and creepy. I assure you, it’s red.
So we buy our tampons based on grams of fluid it holds, and SOME of us have to buy what I refer to as the “period trough,” because we deal with more than just a period. It’s like our vagina murdered someone and then panicked and pleaded with us to help it hide the body. On a related note, I want to know who these women are who only need the “light” tampons and maxi pads. In my head, I’ve imagined them as tiny little blondes who wear Ralph Lauren polos and headbands, and when they feel their periods coming on, they scrunch up their little button-noses, let out a tiny mouse-like squeak while tensing up slightly, and then they’re done til next month.
But for those of us with slaughterhouses in our uterus, we need the period troughs, and tampon boxes are nice enough to let us know just how much each tampon size will hold so we can choose accordingly. But it doesn’t do us a lot of good when WALGREENS only carries the second most absorbent tampon across ALL brands. I sat in their tampon aisle for ten minutes, reading each box and, without fail, the highest absorbency I could find was the second to the highest. LOOK!
So then I was thinking, what if the very highest tampons are so big that they can’t keep them on the shelves? I’m going to have to swallow my pride and walk up to the pharmacist and ask for a period trough? He will realize that the fact that I am asking for a full trough, coupled with the fact that I am not blonde, or wearing a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, means that I am likely going to blow at any second. So he will calmly put on his suit of armor and summon his team of tiny midgets with shields who cautiously roll out a wheelbarrow holding a tampon the size of a twin bed mattress. Then as I look at him, with my eyes slowly turning red and fangs growing out of my gums, I’ll say, “Are the midgets necessary?” and he’ll says, “This one’s on the house if you calmly leave. We all have taser guns and will use them if necessary.” At which point I’ll just laugh and say, “Tasers are a mere tickle against my hormones of rage,” and then I’ll take my mattress tampon and elephant-stomp my way back home.
And Always, if you ever make a maxi pad labeled, “Fat, bloated, horny and angry,” I will personally buy 12 cases within the first month of its release.
