Tuesday, June 13, 2006

In which I whine about being a girl, and it's mostly not funny

Because, from all appearances, my burst of quasi-demi-fame from the whole Michele thing is over and we're back to nearly nobody reading my blog (except all y'all who already know I'm one taco short of a combo plate), I once again feel free to post about crap nobody really needs to know about.
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Today's offering is personal, and a little on the "jagged edge" side of Tiff, but while I was writing about it for someplace else I decided it wasn't quite right for that place and decided to just post it here. Your loss. Sorry.
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WARNING! WARNING!
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If "body stuff" upsets you, or you'd really rather not KNOW about my issues with being a woman who is, aggravatingly, STILL of childbearing years, then please go someplace else, becaues this entry has a distinct whiff of GRRRRL power mixed with the musky overtones of FEMINISM and THE GODDESS-TALK.
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Or, maybe it's "MODESS" talk, but if you read more you'll find out what I'm talking about anyhow.
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Onward, ye brave ones. Perhaps there will be a joke at the end as a reward for your fortitude.
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I am about to delve into the land of the disgusting, so watch out. I already warned you once...
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Here are 2 words in combination that a lady should never have to experience:

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Tampon failure.
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Gentlemen - you will never know this feeling, so tuck your rejoinders of "but you don't know what it's like to get a boner in class" into the back pocket of your egos now and forever. You do not know. You can never know. You don't understand the sudden departure of a date, or why your wife only wears black pants 5 days a month, or why that hidden pocket in her purse crinkles, or why your normally sex-pot lover has a whole DRAWER full of underwear that your grandma would think is dowdy, because you just can't know. It's not how you're wired. We, the suffering females, forgive you for this, as long as you agree to STFU and let us whine.
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Ladies - you know of what I speak. The sudden gushy feeling when you get out of your car, or the warm-ish sensation in your crotchal region while you're in a team meeting, or the wet "uh-oh" as you're pitching to the little league instructional team.
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Haven't we all been there? Haven't we all, at one time or another, if we're of the female persuasion, had that moment of "oh shit, something's going on down there that's just not right." Yes, I think we have. If not yet, you will, trust me. Please accept my apologies for telling you in advance.
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One effect of the failure of protection is that I have thrown away more pairs of hopelessly stained underwear than I care to admit. I have thrown some of them away at work, or in public restrooms, or someplace NOT my home, because the result of the failure can be catastrophic, to the point of admitting that trying to save the bloodied undies is not worth the three bucks it will take to buy a new pair.
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(I told you this was going to be disturbing.)
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Ladies, I dare you to tell me you haven't dumped some undies yourselves. Just as my husband says all real men have chin scars, I would offer that all real women have disrobed in a public bathroom to dispatch sullied undies to the confines of a little trash can on the wall of a stall (y'all).
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A further note - my aging uterus seems to believe that its sole goal in life is to make me guess not only WHEN I get my period, but with what FORCE I'll get it. By golly, when I think that I'm going to have a delicate-flower-type time of it, doesn't that bitch of a 44-year old baby hammock open up the floodgates on day 3. Doesn't Little Miss Uterus 1962 decide to maybe wait 3 weeks between effluvial flows, and then hesitate an extra week or 2 for a couple of times in a row just to be a coy little crone, then stutter-step back to the tri-weekly triathlon of Cramp, Bloat, and Flow for a few rounds, always changing up the heavy days and the time-to-last-tampon just to keep things "interesting."
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A word to to young ladies out there - This whole period thing does NOT get any easier as time goes by; because I have recently discovered what the term "menorrhagia" really means, and just how it affects my life now that I'm well past doing anything ELSE useful with The Ute. So many lessons, so many ways to learn them....
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Between you and me, I'm rooting for menopause right now. Hot flashes and a risk of osteoporosis seem better than dabbing at myself in a gray bathroom stall, trying to clean up the endometrium that tried to make its escape in a sudden explosive bid for gory freedom.
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And that's all I'm sayin' about THAT.
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Oh, if you stuck around for something funny, just on the hopes that all that slogging through my personal muck might be worth a laugh at the end....I got nothin'; however, I now invite you to sing an iteration of the Hallelujah Chorus (standing is optional) in honor of the passing of "The Move." Yes, it is, for all intents and purposes, finished.
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We spent the first night in our new house last night, watching fireflies flicker across the front yard, inhaling the scent of new wood floors, settling each boy in his own room for the first time in his life, eating Chinese takeout, and wondering where we're going to put all the stuff we've accumulated during our 17 years together.
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All in all, it was a good thing indeed.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll get personal right along with you, here...I don't generally have leakage problems, because I tend to check with moderate paranoia. I have also, since the return of my cycle after my son's birth, started wearing a regular thin pad along with said tampon, just for the heck of it (apparently I'm looking for that bulky feeling).

Speaking of cycles, mine did not return for 15 months after my son's birth. That was just fine with me, but here's some irony for you - It returned the day before a pap smear appointment. Shouldn't I have just KNOWN that would happen?

Congrats on the new house...and chinese food sounds good right now.

The Retropolitan said...

It is true that all real mean have chin scars.

*points to chin*

But not all real men like to ponder tampon failure.

tiff said...

3carnations - timing, they say, is everything. Yours is PERFECT!!!!

retro - well, I DID warn you. And that's alovely scar you got there.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the joys of soiled undies and cute bone-colored Ann Taylor capris. I was cruising along just fine until I turned 40, and then the flood gates opened. I never know what to expect each month. And the last place I left a pair of horribly stained panties was the trash receptacle in a handicapped bathroom stall at the Harris Teeter. That warm, gushy feeling hit me in the frozen food aisle.

At least you'll have lots of room to store all your underwear in your NEW HOUSE!!!!!

tiff said...

kiiiim - thank god it's not just me. And, if I can FIND my UNDERWEAR I would STORE it, but alas, it is lost in a box among boxes, etc. I fear that going commando is in my future unless I unearth that box soon.

Deb R said...

I'm exactly your age and the past couple of years I'm having exactly the same problem. (Ever stood up and had everything suddenly overflow so bad that you've literally got a stream of blood flowing down your leg and leaving drops on the floor? I have! Thank gawd it happened at home, not out and about.) Menopause is sounding pretty damn good to me right about now.

kenju said...

I hope you enjoy your new digs and have many good years there together.

rennratt said...

As I get older (hitting mid 30s this year officially...) - my cycles get worse and worse. I have discovered, lately, that I am either sick or MEAN. Sick includes hot and cold flashes, nausea, etc. Mean, well...I KNOW I am being mean - and can't help it.

Regarding the 'heavy hitters':

http://www.birthwithsol.com/keeper.html

Maybe this would help?

Or, maybe this?

http://www.birthwithsol.com/keeper.html

I have ditched drawers in Wal-Mart bathrooms - and at work. You're right. The older you get, the worse it gets!

Anonymous said...

Tiff, I'm three years older, and it doesn't get any better, just more frequent. Sorry...

Congrats on getting into the house! Pictures?

Beth said...

Not grossed out at all, but I must admit, I have never thrown underwear away in any public situation. I'm too cheap for that, but I ride the cotton horse, no tampons for me. In my youth, I wore tampons, but I also wore back-up protection, which kind of made tampons a moot point. Haha.

Anonymous said...

DebR - why yes, I HAVE had that experience. Isn't being a girl FUN?

Kenju - thanks much - once all the bozes are gone we'll know just how much ROOM we have. I don't see that happening for another few months. :>

Renn - you SO did not just mention the keeper here!

WN - Gee, thanks for that. Pictures of the house are forhtcoming. I took a bunch last night, but I think all the boxes got in the way. The front porch looks nice though.

Beth - I'm thinking of adding-on like Ms Carnations or just hopping on the cotton horse too. This whole thing is too "blech" to deal with, and if it only gets worse, I'm not sure I can take it!