Tampons

I was thinking just now of my friend Christy's mom who took us into the bathroom when we were in eighth grade and tried to teach us about tampons. Up until that point, the only thing we ever used tampons for was to shoot them at my brothers after church. In fact, I'm almost certain that it was upon being caught flinging tampons around the sanctuary that we were forced to endure the tampon lesson. Basically, this involved us sitting on the edge of the tub, hoping to god that Christy's mom couldn't smell the cigarette smoke on us, while her mom lined up a series of glasses on the bathroom counter and tampons of all different brands. She explained how to use them, handed us each some instructions, and then made the stupidest mistake a mom can make while administering the tampon lesson. She proceeded open each tampon, take it out of its applicator, if it had one, and drop each one into its own glass. And there they swelled, like... well... unless you've seen it, it's hard to describe. But tampons come in a small variety of shapes. Some open up into little mattresses (Tampax) or unfurl like billowy umbrellas (Tampax Pearl) or untwist into some other uncomfortable shape. The thing is that, when left to their own devices, unfettered by a vagina, tampons will balloon up. And Christy and I looked at these cottony messes growing larger and larger in the glasses and looked at each other and Christy looks at her mom, eyes wide in terror, and says, "Jesus Christ, Mom, how the hell does that fucker come out?!" "Well, hmm, now they don't get that big..." "The fuck they don't! You think I'm going to put that thing up inside me when it does that?!?!" "Well, they're very convenient." "Are you fucking nuts?" "There's no need to swear." "Does B.'s mom know you're telling her this shit?" "Yes." "Has the world gone fucking mad?" Needless to say, neither one of us were converted to tampon use that day. But I remember when I got home, my mom sort of wanted to continue to talk about it. I'm sure she'd been briefed about the disaster. She handed me another sheet of instructions and said, "Now, you may have discovered that you have a hole. I just want you to know that such exploration is natural and that even though I don't want to know about it, you shouldn't be ashamed of it. Just read this and if you have any questions..." "Yeah, ma?" "Maybe we can ask your Aunt B. to answer them. She's a nurse."