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Comic strip: A
conservative American
family visits the
(future) Museum of Menstruation
(not finished; I'm thinking about it)
|
"Here's a few gems on heavy flow days, all
original," writes
the contributor:
Today my vagina has transformed herself to an
inverted Vesuvius. Tourists beware.
The space between my thighs is a theater.
Someone is staging Sweeny Todd there right now.
To an intimate partner: I'd love to, baby, but
the field's been shut down due to inclimate
weather.
If I have to clean up this much blood again,
somebody better be decapitated.
All things considered
When I was in 5th grade and my sister in fourth, my
Mother thought it would be a good idea to kill two
birds with one stone and speak to both of us about
the the curse that we should come to expect.
She didn't want to scare us as her mother did her
and her sisters, so, she tried to spin it by adding
that our breasts would blossom at the same time. My
little sister was silent and listened while I asked
all the questions I could think of.
After my Mother answered every question I had, my
sister examined my mother and me for a moment and
said... "I'd rather have a penis."
That's the Gods Honest Truth.
Burglar-proof:
When I was a kid, in the 1950's, I liked to look at
my mother's magazines, like Good Housekeeping. One
day I saw a Kotex ad showing a well-dressed, elegant
woman in a hat and gloves, with the words,
"Proportioned? But why?"
I had no idea what the ad was about. The text under
the photo said something about "napkins" being "for
your protection."
"How can dinner napkins protect you?" I wondered.
"Do you put them on the dining room table at night
and they scare away burglars?"
She writes, "I wanted to pass along this geeky
period comic, which I didn't see on your
humor page: http://xkcd.com/594/
"
I got a story here for your humor section!
Back when it happened, I was humiliated and
wouldn't have even thought about sharing it with
even my best friend. But now, two years later it
cracks me up when I think back at it.
Anyway, I was 13 and in 8th grade. I felt exhausted
that friday night after the long week at school, and
back then I only used pads. So I was just laying
around, being lazy, when I decided to get up and get
ice cream (chocolate, of course, hehe) and I just
went to get it in the kitchen and came back, when I
got a glimpse of my butt in the mirror, and
*******!!! I leaked all over the back of my silk pj
pants, and I'd just walked out into the kitchen and
broadcasted it without knowing! I felt so awkward,
that even after I changed my pants and my pad, I
didn't want to go back out there! Of course, it
didn't just stop there.
I fell asleep around midnight, pretty early for
myself. I was in the greatest sleep of my life, when
I woke up around 4 AM, just randomly, and my butt
felt soaked...oh crap. I already knew what had
happened, but I got up and saw the evidence on my
sweatpants anyway. Of course it wasn't just the
sweats...it looked like somebody committed a murder
on my bed and just left the remains (Godfather bed
scene, anyone? Only this wasn't with a horse head!).
I knew I couldn't just leave it. I felt gross
sleeping in my own blood, so I decided to attempt to
get the stain out, since I was not about to wake up
my parents at that hour. At first, I just tried cold
water with no success, then I tried adding hand
soap. Stupid idea...it did very little to help with
my bloody explosion. The only change was that now,
my room smelled like vanilla and shea butter. Me
with my stupid thirteen year old logic tried using
dish soap...and I must say, that helped the most,
but soon I moved on to laundry soaps, and by about
5:30 AM, the stain was mostly out. Only one error: I
lay down, right on the wet spot, totally forgetting
it's wet, so I roll over and sleep on the other side
on the bed, which felt weird considering I'd never
slept on that side before. The sweats? Forget them.
I was exhausted, mentally and physically, after
trying to fix my murder scene for an hour and a
half. So yup, you guessed it....I slept in my
underwear. Luckily, when I woke up later at a decent
hour, I hadn't leaked again....I hate my period lol!
Stories serious and funny:
I don't know what made me go looking for Majorie May's 12th Birthday.
I guess the older I get the more I want to remember
from my youth. I was born in 1954 but this book was
the one my mother gave me when I turned 12. Even
then I knew it had to be fairly out of date. No one
had taught her anything so she was afraid to try and
explain things to us. Didn't help that as the
youngest of three girls I started my periods 3 years
younger than my sisters.
The story about the girl thinking the pad was a
bandaid reminded my why I still have some kicking
around the house. I have had a number of surgeries
in recent years and the last one left me with
repeated infections in the incisions. The thick,
super plus pads made great covers for the drainiage.
I could never get enough gauze on to absorb the
drainiage so I decided to try pads. I told the
doctor during one of my visits and he thought it was
a great idea.
As to humour.
We had a stray cat as a pet a number of years ago.
We were living in a small town house at the time. I
heard the cupboard door, in the bathroom, open and
close but I didn't think much about it. I heard her
playing around in the upstairs hall. It was about 5
minutes later she came down the stairs chasings a
tampon. I took it away from her but it did make for
a funny story at work.
The contributor of the below story writes, "My
own father,
if I dare even mention my period (even saying 'that
time of the month')
assures me that he doesn't want to know and all but
sticks his fingers in his ears. . . . Since
these sort of details
seem of interest to your site, my mum is actually
English-born herself,
and grew up right after the war as the youngest of
four (three of them girls).
Being poor, she had told me that they often couldn't
afford sanitary napkins,
and her mother would rip up
sheets for them to use
when they were on their periods. The sheets
didn't absorb well, and
had to be changed often, but then, it seems they
didn't have much choice."
I normally don't email websites, but I thought
this story needed to be shared. Like many of these,
the humor here stems from men's willful ignorance of
all things menstrual.
My mum told me this story while talking about her
pre-marriage career, working in a branch office of a
gas/oil company [in Houston, Texas]. On this
occasion an anonymous person called in a bomb threat
to the office, and all employees were sent home for
the day while the bomb squad searched the premises
for the device. Later it was related to the
employees that the (all-male) officers thought they
had it when they found a 'suspicious'
metal box in a female lavatory. One can
imagine their excitement and adrenaline as they
moved the box to a safe area, sent in a man to
carefully open the lid, and ... yeah, I'm sure you
can imagine what they found.
At least it wasn't a bomb.
Contributor: "The funniest commercial I ever saw was
a few years
ago and on American TV.
It portrayed a mother folding laundry and taking
it up stairs to put away.
Meanwhile her little boy and his fried are in the
little boy's room getting money out of his piggy
bank. Mom passes the door on her way to deposit
clothes or towels and she over hears the boys
talking and stops to listen:
*Little Friend: So whacha gonna by with all your
money?*
*Little Boy: Some OB Tampons!*
*Little Friend: Why do you want OB tampons?*
*Little Boy: 'Cause if you have OB Tampons you can
go swimming and ride horses and play tennis and go
to the beach!*
*Mom gasps laughing and drops her load of towels
on the floor*
"I swear I saw this ad on *TV* and I have never been
able to find
it in any search of the internet. Have you seen this
ad? [No - has
anyone?]
"Do you think you could ask your contributors if
they have ever
seen it? *I think it is just
the thing that would
make advertising these products tolerable for
everyone* but I guess
some are too sensitive."
*[The writer knows that this is an old joke,
variants of which you can
read further down.]*
Yours,
****
The conclusion of "Issues of
Blood"
(the last of three parts) by Mr. Bloom (letter right
below).
Mr. Finley,
After reading the many delightful anecdotes and
informative articles
in the MUM, I got inspired to contribute a bit of humor
of my own.
Hope you enjoy.
Mr. P. Farthingale Bloom
Tampons in Saudi Arabia
When I lived in Saudi Arabia, one of the American
wives on our compound had a pretty funny story about
the menstrual taboos. Tampons were not sold in Saudi
Arabia, I guess because they require Touching Down
There, and we all know where THAT can lead.
So when American women went to the U.S. or Europe,
they stocked up on tampons and brought them back in
their luggage. To save space, they would unpack the
tampons from their boxes and scatter them throughout
the suitcases along with their clothes.
Now coming into Saudi Arabia, customs searches
EVERYTHING. Huge PITA. A 747 with 400 passengers
lands at 3 A.M., and everybody waits in a long line
while the customs officers root through everybody's
underwear and toiletries, looking for pork,
pornography, etc.
When this woman got her turn, the customs officer
pulled out a Tampax, looked at it quizzically, held
it up and asked: "What is this?"
She spent a few agonizing moments trying to think
of a tactful way to tell him what it was.
Meanwhile, Customs Guy is still inspecting the
Tampax, probably thinking: "It looks like a fuse for
a Molotov cocktail or some other infernal device.
Perhaps I have captured a terrorist! Allah will be
pleased ...."
The American wife finally said: "It's only for
woman."
With that, the light finally dawned for Customs
Guy. He turned bright red, threw the tampon back in
her suitcase, slammed it shut, and said: "Go. Just
GO!"
[While it might be politically insensitive to show
you this right here, see a strange
tampon from, um, Israel.
Mr. Finley,
I have been a fan of your site for several years now
and find research
on the topic of menstruation and social images
absolutely fascinating. I
would like to contribute a joke that was sent to me,
and with the current
economic times I find this hilarious and yet, perhaps,
useful.
A devoted fan and researcher,
****
*My dear * *family and * *friends, **
Somewhat embarrassing to admit, Christmas is tight
this year. I will
be making bedroom slippers for you all as gifts.
Please let** **me know
your sizes. You'll most likely agree that it's a
splendid idea, and should
you wish to do the same, I've included the
instructions below. **
*How to make bedroom slippers out of maxi pads:
You need four maxi pads to make a pair.
Two of them get laid out flat, for the foot part.
The other two wrap around the toe area to form the
top.
Tape or glue each side of the top pieces to the
bottom of the foot part.
Decorate the tops with whatever you desire, silk
flowers (this is most
aesthetically appealing), etc.
These slippers are:
* Soft and Hygienic
* Non-slip grip strips on the soles
* Built in deodorant feature keeps feet smelling
fresh
* No more bending over to mop up spills
* Disposable and biodegradable
* Environmentally safe
* Three convenient sizes: (1.) Regular, (2.) Light
and (3.) Get out the
Sand Bags.
I've attached a photo of the first pair I made so
that you can see the
nifty slippers for yourself....
Awaiting your response. It's crucial that I get the
right size for each
one of you.
*Don't worry guys I make Mens too*
Harry Finley,
The funniest commercial I ever saw was a few years
ago and on American
TV. It portrayed a mother folding laundry and taking
it up stairs to put
away. Meanwhile her little boy and his fried are in
the little boy's room
getting money out of his piggy bank. Mom passes the
door on her way to deposit
clothes or towels and she over hears the boys talking
and stops to listen:
Little Friend: So whacha gonna by with all your
money?
Little Boy: Some OB Tampons!
Little Friend: Why do you want OB tampons?
Little Boy: 'Cause if you have OB Tampons you
can go swimming and ride horses and play tennis
and go to the beach!
Mom gasps laughing and drops her load of towels
on the floor
I swear I saw this ad on TV and I have never
been able to find
it in any search of the internet. Have you seen this
ad? [No - has
anyone?] Do you think you could ask your
contributors if they have ever seen it? I think it
is just the thing
that would make advertising these products tolerable
for everyone but
I guess some are too sensitive.
[The writer knows that this is an old joke,
variants of which
you can read further down.]
A great thanks for your website - I've been
reading it all day and
I love it! I thought I'd contribute a few stories of
my own.
When I was a little girl, we had some family
visiting and I was out
playing with my cousins. I fell and scraped my knee,
and so I came inside
the kitchen where my mother was entertaining company
to ask where the Band-Aids
were. She replied that they were under her sink, and
I went off to find
one. I found a nice large one, but I couldn't figure
out why the sticky
side and the bandage were on opposite sides. How was
I supposed to make
it stay? I went into the living room to ask Mom,
struggling as I walked
to make the bandage stay (which was obviously a pad,
although I was blissfully
unaware). My mother turned a bright red and rushed
me out of the room to
help me find a REAL Band-Aid while everyone else in
the room laughed hysterically.
But the second is the best, albeit the strangest.
My mother and I
were in her bedroom watching TV together when we
realized we were hearing
odd noises coming from my little brother's room (he
was about 4 or 5 at
the time, I believe), which was just next door, and
is connected to their
bathroom. We both went into his bedroom to make sure
all was well, and when
we got there, we saw him hiding under the covers,
only his wide panicked
eyes visible. Mom tugged the edge of the covers off
and there, between his
sheets, were handfuls of tampons, probably a couple
of boxes worth. We never
figured out just what it was he was planning to do
with them - it looked
like he was hoarding them!
Thanks and keep up the good work!
"Saying yes to life even in its strangest and
hardest problems; the
will to life rejoicing over its own
inexhaustibility even in the very
sacrifice of its highest types-this is what I call
Dionysian." - Nietzsche
The Onion wanes sentimental - not: Read "Area
Seventh-Grader
Now A Woman."
A Brazilian writes,
Last Tuesday [August 2008], the national
humouristic TV show "Casseta e Planeta Urgente,"
from Globo network, showed a fake newspaper
headline:
"Trãnsito do Rio naqueles
dias - Detran instala absorventes para conter o
fluxo na Linha Vermelha"
(Translation: Rio (de
Janeiro city)'s traffic on those days - Detran
installs pads to contain flow on Red Line)
Detran - Traffic Department, state authority
Linha Vermelha - an expressway which serves this
city
A screenshot of this moment is attached with
this mail.
See the program here: Rede Globo's official
video site:
http://video.globo.com/
Videos/Player/Entretenimento/0,,GIM865600-7822-PIADA+DE+ULTIMA+HORA,00.html
Is TAMPAX sponsoring a car
at NASCAR
races??
See the END of this video
news
broadcast.
A twin spin:
I gotta funny story. I was at summer camp the year
before 4th grade, and I'd never heard of a period.
Some of the fifth grade girls were talking, and one
said that a boy named Jimmy had maxi-pads in his
closet. Another said that was because if one of his
girlfriends came, he could offer one to her. I had
no clue what they were talking about, but somehow I
knew it had something to do with blood coming out of
the private. Disgusted and scared, I immediately
dismissed the idea that blood would come out of a
girls private. Two years later, the exact thing that
I denied happened to me.
This is one of my friends: Ok ,so this girl had her
purse next her, and she was hanging out with my
friend and another guy. Ok, so the guy happens to
see a package in her purse and pulls it out, asking:
"What's this?" Then she told him it was a pad. He
dropped it immediately on the ground, disgusted.
This was apparently not the first time he'd done
this. When my friend told me this, I said, "He
should stop pulling Easter-colored packages from
girls' purses."
This just in:
At a previous employer, there was a moody guy who
would go over to the general manager's secretary's
office. He would wait for her to be called into her
boss's office and then snoop into her desk. One day,
the secretary took an envelope, put a tampon in it
and wrote his name on it. When Cranky Carl arrived,
she handed him the sealed envelope and said, "Carl,
you need this more today than I do." He opened it
and saw what was inside, he stormed out in a foul
mood.
A variation on an old theme:
Two young boys walk into a pharmacy one day, pick
out a box of Tampax and proceed to the checkout
counter.
The man at the counter asks the older boy, "Son,
how old are you?"
"Eight," the boy replies.
The man continues, "Do you know what these are used
for?"
"Not exactly," the boy says. "But they aren't for
me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four. We
saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to
swim and ride a bike. Right now he can't do either
one."
From the United Kingdom:
Tampax have announced they are swapping the string
on all Tampax for tinsel, but just for the Christmas
period!
I am happy to find your web museum tonite.
So many years ago when I lived in D.C. in the late
80's I heard of the
museum. I cannot remember if the Citypaper or New York
magazine but I wrote
the author some jokes back then and since I never
became a stand up comedienne
I don't get to use them.
So what if female hygiene was not the responsibility
of the textile or
paper industry but rather the baking industry.....????
Then once a months gals would be "on a roll" instead
of the
rag ... and how smart would lady fingers be.
I sure it could go on with pastries and jelly rolls,
etc. .. but it is
interesting how sometime based on what is a cheaper
commodity things progress.
Who would have thought there would be bamboo sheets
and things.
Thanks again for your great social experiment and may
you be as famous
as Mr. Titslinger, etc.
An e-mailer writes, "I recently read (in The Big Book
of the 1970's,
a comic book of factoids) that John Lennon (of
Beatles fame), in
a drunken nightclub rampage during the early 1970's,
wore a tampon on his
head."
Two e-mailers' comments about the Always
[menstrual pads] Happy Period
campaign:
[1.] Then there's
the "have a
happy period" campaign, which to my mind belongs on
the list of plausible
defenses for homicide.
(http://www.always.com/mom/boostmood.jsp)
When Always products came on the market, my first
reaction was--who in
the world wants to associate any of this stuff with
Always? How
about Never? That
makes as much sense
as naming luggage after Amelia Earhart, who never
came back.
Once I made my husband look [at her used menstrual
pad]. He has never
quite got over it. I just told him I thought he ought
to, once. At the time
we'd been married about 15 years, and I'd had two kids
and a miscarriage.
Well, I won't bug you any more, Harry. You are a
brave man and some
kind of hero. I hope you get
a well-deserved statue,
molded of firm and absorbent cotton, or
at least a page of immortality
in Guinness.
[Read her comments about stopping
her period.]
[2.] The female veterinarian who treats my cats
gave me this e-mail.
Yeah, of course she knows about this museum. I
eliminated the names to protect
the innocent and guilty.
This is an actual letter sent to Procter &
Gamble from **** ****, Austin, Texas, regarding
their feminine products. . . .
Dear Mr. ****,
I have been a loyal user of your Always Maxi Pads
for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their
features. Why, without the LeakGuardCore(tm) or
Dri-Weave(tm) absorbency, I'd probably never go
horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly
steer clear of running up and down the beach in
tight, white shorts. But my favourite feature has to
be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being
the only company smart enough to realize how crucial
it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell
you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing
there's a little F-16 in my pants.
Have you ever had a period, Mr. ****? Ever suffered
from "the curse"? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my
"time of the month" is starting right now. As I
type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently
surging through my body. Just a few minutes from
now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed
into what my husband likes to call "an inbred
hillbilly with knife skills."
Isn't the human body amazing?
As Brand Manager in the Feminine-hygiene Division,
you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what
exactly happens during your customers' monthly
visits from "Aunt Flo." Therefore, you must also
know about the the bloating, puffiness, and cramping
we endure, and about our intense mood swings,
crying, and out-of-control behavior. You surely
realize it's a tough time for most women. In fact,
only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the
violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into
a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he
thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken
chimps. Crazy!
The point is, sir, you of all people must realize
that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs
in Capri pants . . . which brings me to the reason
for my letter.
Last month, while in the throes of cramping so
painful wanted to reach inside my body and and yank
out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and
there, printed on on the adhesive backing, were
these words: "Have a Happy
Period."
Are you f**king kidding me? Does any part of your
middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual
smiling, laughing happiness is possible during a
period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least
bit pleasurable? Well, did it, ****? FYI, unless
you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there
will never be anything "happy" about a day in which
you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua
and lock yourself in your house just so you don't
march down to the local KMart armed with a hunting
rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze
of glory.
For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If
you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi
pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something
that's actually pertinent, like "Put Down the Hammer" or "Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong,"
or are you just picking on us?
Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that,
effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in
monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my
maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will
certainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one
minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit.
And that's a promise I will keep.
Always.
Best,
**** ****
Austin, Texas
Hello!
I thought of the MUM's humor section when I saw this
clip from the cult
British TV comedy The Young Ones. In this clip, the
clueless Rick was playing
with a tampon that he found in a partygoer's purse,
not knowing what it
is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk4a9o6-2zw
I do not know whether you have seen that clip, but
hope you get a kick
out of it.
Sincerely,
Headlines from The Onion:
"Local
Pre-Teen Violates Best Friend's Menstruation
Non-Disclosure Agreement"
"Eight-Pound
Man Removed From Woman's Vagina"
When I got my period for the first time, my mom gave
me a pad to go put
on. I went into the bathroom, and came out complaining
to my mom about how
bloody uncomfortable it was. She didn't see why I'd
find it so uncomfortable,
so I showed her.
Needless to say, she was pretty surprised when she
saw the pad with the
adhesive side stuck directly on me, and not my
panties.
I was in grade school, probably grade one or two, and
three of us were
playing in a corner of the school yard. Joyce
whispered something to us,
completely unbelievable - she said her sister had
fallen down and cut herself
"down there" - 'cause she was bleeding. We tried to
picture this,
imagining falling on a piece of glass or something
sharp. We could not picture
how you would put a band-aid there. We really had no
idea what this meant,
or that it was her older sister getting her period.
It took me until age 15 to start my period, and by
then all my friends
had had it. We used to quiz each other about the
precursor symptoms. Someone
said once you started having the white discharge, your
period was coming
soon. Because it took so long to get started, I was
very very eager to have
a period. Many embarrassing moments were to come with
it, however, as I
was always caught unaware, unprepared and often with
no supplies on hand.
Like the time I went skiing with my new boyfriend. We
left on a bus from
his high school and were gone the whole day. I came in
at one point to use
the bathroom and noticed I had started bleeding.
Believe it or not, there
were no Kotex machines, the lady at the lodge couldn't
help me. There was
nothing I could do but use paper towels bunched up and
sit in the lodge
till the end of the day. By the time we got back to
the high school, and
I was able to get to the washroom, I had to throw my
panties out, too much
mess. Of course, I couldn't tell my boyfriend about
any of this, or explain
why I was sitting inside instead of skiing. The taboo
was so strong, even
in 1970-something, that I felt too shy to tell him.
Only one of many anecdotes of overflowing, stains and
ruined clothing.
I just discovered this corner of your web site - it's
very funny.
You'd think 30 years and lots of feminism later, we'd
have changed, but
my daughter is still very shy to talk about her
period. At least she tells
me when she has it. I don't think she wants to mention
it to her brother
though.
I'm still trying to figure out how to reach girls her
age with that topic.
Younger visitors often see what a menstrual belt
looks like for the first time; often, they have just
vaguely heard of them.
I had to laugh at this - when I was about thirteen
(summer of '84) my
aunt was going through a bunch of things to put in her
yard sale and held
up what looked like a garter belt with only two
garters. "Do you want
this?" she asked, and when I asked what it was, she
whispered, "It's
a sanitary belt!" Whispered, even though she and I
were the only two
people there. I, having begun menstruating well after
the advent of adhesive pads
- and in fact, not long after the
market debut of Maxithins - had never seen a sanitary
belt before. I'd seen
the pads, however - in our middle school, the nurse
had apparently gotten
a good deal on a large supply of the old-fashioned
pads, which she would
hand out with two safety pins apiece for us to pin
them into our underwear.
It was a source of endless amusement for we would-be
Valley Girls.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a trip with a couple
of friends of mine
to a relative's house. This house had a pool and the
one friend was going
to be on her period. She had never used a tampon
before, even at 18, because
she had had trouble putting it in when she was
younger. So we decided to
teach her. My other friend took one apart trying to
dispel worries, attempted
to show how the cardboard applicator worked without
really showing, and
demonstrated the soaking ability in the sink. Well,
several tries and she
couldn't do it and my just in case supply of four ran
out. So we left her
at the house and went to the local pharmacy. After
debating between regular
and slender tampons, we picked up some chocolate. I
can't imagine what the
man at the register thought with two girls purchasing
a box of tampons and
a pack of snickers. Well, after she had chocolate, our
friend was successful!
I heard a story/joke about a little kid seeing
blood in the toilet
when mom stood up. She explained that "her
vagina was sick."
Hope this helps.
God bless you and yours, ***
My inquisitive 7-year-old son found my tampons and
asked, "Mum, what
are these bullets for?"
Embarrassed, I told him, "It's meant for girl's
use so don't
ask."
Being the persistent little boy that he is, he
continued, "But
Mama, tell me which part of the body it's
for! Is it for the ear?"
I tried in vain to brush his questions aside with
"No, use below."
He quickly jumped to the conclusion: "I know, it's
to put inside
your buttocks."
Thanks for the great site! I had so many
good laughs.
Cheers
So, where in !**&
would you find a pantypad
on a door?
Here's a little anecdote.
I got my first period during a summer spent in
France. One morning,
I fought with my sister and got sent upstairs to the
room. I was angry and
crying and noticed a stain on my panties. I woke up
my mom next door. She
saw what it was and seeing me crying hugged me and
said there was nothing
to be afraid of.
"It's not that!" I sobbed, "Daddy won't let me
watch
Dragon Ball Z!"
Of course, I already knew everything about
menstruation. But
my mother's face was priceless.
Here in UK we always believed that there are strings
on a tampon so
that the crabs can practise bungee jumping.
A Canadian writes,
I think I may be able clear up the problem of the
guy buying sporting
goods when he wanted tampons. [Scroll down for other
versions.] I heard
a joke a very long time ago that sounds similar,
except it involved a lawn
mower. In any event, it's a pretty good joke. The
joke goes like this:
A salesman was reprimanded for not anticipating
a customer's needs. The manager said, "If someone
comes in looking for a fishing pole, try to sell
him some tackle and a tackle box as well."
The salesman had this in mind when a very
embarrassed looking gentleman walked into the
store. The gentleman whispered, "Excuse me. I need
some tampons for my wife." The salesman showed him
where they were and then asked, "Come with me,
sir. I'd like to show you the most amazing lawn
mower you've ever seen." The gentleman,
clearly just wanting to get out of the store,
asked gruffly, "Why the hell do I want a lawn
mower?" To which the salesman cheerfully replied,
"Since your weekend's screwed, you may as well cut
the grass."
Wow, I thought I was the only boy to have found an
outrageous use
for a Tampax as a child, great to see there are
others out there. Here's
mine:
In the 1970's, our church in Wisconsin sponsored
several families of
Vietnamese refugees to live in our town. My father was
the pastor of the
church, and I must have been about 8 to 10 years old
when they arrived.
My mother had invited them to a welcoming lunch with
several other of the
ladies, and I must have been very curious about this
different culture and
interesting people, so I thought of the idea of
pretending to be a radio
show host and interviewing them. I created my "radio"
from a child's
piggy-bank shaped like a safe (it had a dial on it I
could use for "tuning")
but then I needed a microphone - where could I find
one? Uh huh, you got
it: they were kept in the bathroom and even had a cord
already attached!
My mom was mortified as I ran excitedly down the
stairs and thrust the microphone
into the face of our visitors and peppered them with
questions! [The writer
contributed "Indians are visiting" to the Iran
section of Words and expressions
about menstruation.]
I've just spent an hour or so reading the humor on
the website and the
different way that boys played with sanitary products.
Am I the only guy who, as a young boy, thought those
little cardboard
tubes that mysteriously appeared in the bathroom trash
can made a great
toy telescope?
The contributor writes,
I may have missed it but I don't see this one my
granny told me years ago. She was a funny, outspoken
lady.
Do you know why elephants don't use tampons?
Would you if you had to put them in with
your nose?
My older brother loved to get into Mom's things when
little; make-up,
jewelry, and pads. Around age three (before my birth)
my father hadn't heard
much noise from my brother and went looking for him.
He found him in the
bathroom peeling back pads and sticking them to the
side of the bathtub.
When asked what he was doing he simply replied, "I'm
making the tub
puffy." When my brother was five he wanted to play
A-Team (TV show
with Mr. T, who has a Mohawk and wears lots of gold
necklaces). The necklace
part was simple: just put on everything in Mom's
jewelry box. Making himself
the same skin color as Mr. T was simple: use all Mom's
black eye shadow
all over his face. And the last thing was how to get a
Mohawk. Well, he
put a pad on the top of his head and walked proudly
into the living room.
My aunts were over for tea and he announced, "Look,
Mom, I'm Mr. T."
These stories always come up during family
get-togethers when a laugh is
needed.
We do have a picture of him playing Mr. T but I
can't do that to him
on the Web - I just show it to all his girlfriends ;)
NOTICE: "THERE WILL BE NO MORE MENSTRUATION JOKES,
PERIOD."
(Contribution from Joe - just joking, period)
A German woman sent these:
Why is the blonde jumping from the tenth floor?
She is testing the wings of the new Always ultra!
Why shouldn't blondes skydive when they are
"having their days"? They could pull the wrong
string!
This is a true story, or at least the college
friend who told it to me swore it was!
When Jimmy was a little boy, he found his mom's
tampons and asked her what they were for. She said,
"They're for when you bleed."
"Oh, OK," replied little Jimmy.
Some time later, little Jimmy and his older
brother were playing in the front yard of the
family's home. Jimmy's brother was prone to
nosebleeds, and got one. Little Jimmy knew just what
to do. . . .
. . . but imagine the look on his mother's face
when she discovered her two sons playing in the
front yard, one with a tampon shoved up his nostril,
string hanging down!
Thanks for your wonderful site!
This is a true story that still makes my face red
today. When I was 16 I was babysitting a
neighbor's three daughters. I was standing in
the hallway talking to their father before they left
for the evening when their oldest, who was 7, came
running around the corner holding up high in the
air an opened tampon in each hand. She
yelled really loud,"LOOK DADDY! SHE HAS THOSE THINGS
YOU PUT IN YOUR BUTT HOLE!" I died. I
never babysat for them again. BUT, I did remember to
ALWAYS put my purse out of reach after that.
Regarding your tampon joke [way] below.
I'll shorten it up a bit, but the manager was
amazed that the rookie (male) salesman sold a guy an
SUV and a boat and all the fishing gear, etc.
The salesman said it was easy. First he sold
him some fishing hooks, and asked him about his
fishing rod. He then told him he'd catch more
fish with a better rod. Then he said he might
as well get a new reel for that rod. How about
a boat. Now a new 500 HP Motor. Now you
need a trailer for the boat and finally an SUV
to pull the trailer.
The amazed manager said "That's
unbelievable! You sold all that stuff to a guy
who came in for fishing hooks?"
The salesman replied, "Actually he came in for
tampons. I told him since his weekend was shot, he
might as well go fishing!"
Now isn't that better?
Ed
The girls were having their sex education class. One
girl piped up will
if we get periods and PMS, what do boys get? Without
missing a beat the
teacher replied they get UMS. Ugly mood swings or
urgently missing
sex.
Speaking of Tampax, I have a true story you might
want to put on your
humour page.
A couple of years ago, when I was working in Mexico,
my best friend
decided he'd come down from New York for a visit, and
asked what I wanted
as a present. Now, in rural Mexico, you can get hold
of Tampax, but they
cost an arm and a leg, so the two women I worked with
and I decided to ask
for two boxes each of Tampax (the boxes of 40), and he
was fine about buying
and transporting them, but told us to be specific.
Well, I wrote back and said, "Tampax regular, the
boxes of 40,
make sure they have cardboard applicators and not
plastic, because the cardboard
is biodegradable."
Armed with the instructions, off he went.
The next day, I get an email back. "I KNEW it
wouldn't be that
easy!
"I spent an hour in the Tampax aisle, with all the
checkout women
staring and laughing at me! What do you want? Pearl
tipped, ribbed, mini,
original, glide? They have round and original and
smooth and smooth maxi
and it just goes on and on and I don't know which one
to get!"
We almost died laughing at work! None of us had been
in a first world
country in so long, we didn't know that Tampax now had
all sorts of varieties,
and the list just seemed ludicrous - as did the image
of this very obviously
gay boy running up and down a long aisle of Tampax
sweating as he tried
to decide which ones to buy, in front of a row of
laughing women!
But he was our hero! The next day he braved the shop
again, and asked
one of the checkout women which one she used, and
bought us six boxes on
her recommendation, AND carried them proudly past the
puzzled Mexican security
guards to us!
Can't wait for his visit to South Korea!
Thank you for your amazing Web site. I laughed and
laughed and felt
good after having the PMS blues today! Here goes a
Tamil (language spoken
in the south of India) "classic" joke.
In Tamil, the code for mom having periods is "not
at home" (poorly translated to "out-of-doors").
Anyway, owing to the segregation criterion in some
orthodox families, it is common for mom to be in a
seperate room of her own and her visitors being told
that she is "not at home." But we kids thought dad
was being rude telling such a lie! So we upped our
voices and said, "But she is in the guest room"!
[The writer tells more about this custom on the 23
December news page here at MUM.]
All the best,
****
"It is imperative to have a holistic view of life in
terms of social,
spiritual and economic development and to achieve the
dream of ancient sages.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" - HH Sri Sri Ravi Shanker
What a relief to see a site with humor and honesty
when it comes to
menstruation!
Just a few quick stories:
My daughter was about 8 when I explained to her
that someday she would get her period and become a
woman! What a day to celebrate! Not too
long after that we were at an RV park, and I got my
period while using the public restroom. I
explained that we had to cut our walk short so I
could go back and get a pad. She skipped all
the way back, burst into the RV, and announced to
her Daddy that we should get a cake to celebrate,
'cause Mommy just became a woman!
This is the same daughter that arranged a "Coming
of Age" Party for her late-blooming girlfriend -
complete with red cake and decorations and contests
like "Who can name the most slang names for your
period."
****
Hi there! I absolutely love your site. It's just
fascinating and really
entertaining as well! I know that you've got pages and
pages of menstruation
jokes, but I hope you have room for another. This is
(obviously) a true
story:
For whatever reason, my aunt and her family refer
to getting one's period as "falling off the roof."
[See more such things here.]
Anyway, one day a few years ago, she and my oldest
(female) cousin were in the car, discussing an old
family friend who was way past menopausal age and
still "falling off the roof".
From the back seat, my youngest cousin, then six
or so and totally baffled, piped up, "Then why does
she keep climbing up there?!"
Thanks for a great site!
****
Thought you would like to hear about the time we
were crossing the border
into the U.S. from Canada via motorcycle. The
border guard opted to
search out bike for contraband. He appeared to be
delighted when an
OB tampon rolled out of the saddlebag. With great
gusto he pounced
upon it exclaiming, "What's this?" It only took
him a few
seconds to figure out what "this" was, and he stopped
his search
immediately and scurried away.
I saw this one episode of Funniest Home Videos where
there was a mom
playing with a video camera. She went into the hall
and saw pad wrappers
all over the floor. So she calls out her son's name,
"Ben? Where are
you?" She hears him in his bedroom and opens the door,
and there are
unused pads stuck all over his bedroom wall, window,
etc. She asks him what
he was doing, and he said, "I wanted the airplane
stickers in my room."
Dracula and his friend go to a pub for a
drink. Dracula's friend
orders a pint of A RH+, Dracula just wants a glass of
hot water. "Hey,
dear Dracula, what's wrong with you? No blood
today?" "Oh,
no," says Dracula, "I have a cold, so I prefer a hot
tea",
and pulls a used Tampax out of his pocket.
I've been reading your humour section, its great, I
particularly like
the, very blackly funny, joke about the homesick
abortion. We have
a variation on it here in Australia, a
comment; "That one crawled
out of the abortion bucket," in reference to a
particularly obnoxious
person, i.e. someone only a mother could love. This
comment is not said
in polite circles, and should only really be said in
the company of very
close friends.
Also: Q: Why did the dead baby cross the road?
A: Because it was stapled to the back of the
chicken.
You know the old exit lines "I'm going to make like
a banana .
. . and split," "I'm going to make like tom . . . and
cruise,"
"Make like a tree . . . and leaf," etc., etc.? A
vulgar addition:
"I'm going to make like a tampon . . . and get out of
this bloody hole."
This one's not necessarily menstrual, but close (and
it's a TRUE story!)
About 20 years ago I was working in a restaurant
with a chef named Martha.
One night a bunch of us were out for drinks after work
and some guy walked
up and starting hitting on Martha. His pick-up line
was, "So, hey baby,
how do you want your eggs in the
morning?" Without missing a beat,
Martha replied, "Unfertilized, thank you!"
[At the bottom of the e-mail sat this:]
"There are two ways of spreading light: To be the
candle or the
mirror that reflects it."
-- Edith Wharton, 'Vesalius in Zante' (1902)
[Then the writer mailed this one:]
When I was 7 or 8 years old, I was intrigued by the
large box of Kotex
my mother kept in the bathroom, but somehow knew not
to ask her about it.
Instead I decided to ask the babysitter, who
refused to tell me. So
then I decided to figure it out for myself. In school
we were learning about
root words, like how "birdhouse" is comprised of
"bird"
+ "house", etc. So I started reading the back of
the Kotex
box, where there was an offer for a pamphlet
explaining "the facts
of life" titled, "Prepare Your Daughter for
Menstruation." I
told the babysitter: "I figured it out: 'menstruation'
has the root
word 'men' so it must be 'Prepare Your Daughter for
Men'!!!" The
babysitter about died laughing, and it wasn't until a
couple of years later
that I discovered why!
One of your jokes reminded me of something that
happened to me.
When I was growing up I was the oldest of three
children. I had a younger
sister and a younger brother. One day my brother
came out of the bathroom
carrying one of Mom's tampons asking her what it
was. He was about
6-7 years old and she told him it was a cigar for
women. Sometime later
Mom caught him in the garage with a tampon and a
package of matches trying
to light it. After he was punished for playing
with fire "us girls"
had a good laugh and forever referred to tampons as
cigars.
Fast track forward 25 or more years: my mother
received a sample package
of tampons in the mail. Since she had "gone
through the change"
when she came to visit my husband and me, she said
when she got ready to
leave, "Oh, I forgot, I have a box of cigars for you
in the car."
I followed her out to the car and she gave them to me.
In the meantime one
of my husband's friends stopped by to visit. You have
to realize my husband
is 16 years older than me and grew up in a house of
all males except his
mother (and lady stuff was never mentioned). So I
came back into the
house and I had the small package of tampons in my
pocket and decided to
stash them in the bathroom. Well, before I could
cross the kitchen
my husband (trying to be a tough macho kinda guy)
said, "Why the hell
is your mom giving you cigars? You don't smoke - give
them to me."
I gladly obliged. I opened the package and pulled
out one of the tampons
and tossed it to him (mind you, his friend witnessed
this all). He either
wasn't paying attention or his eyesight was going; he
opened the tampon
and started to stick it in his mouth. Suddenly he
realized this was
no cigar and saw what it is. He threw it across
the room and was fuming! His
friend and my teenage daughter and I were laughing so
hard we nearly peed
our pants. He was so mad but he knew he could not
say a thing. Later
that evening he asked me when we were alone why would
my mother call them
cigars. I told him the story of my brother. His
only reply was "You're
not right and neither is your mother."
The contributor of "Cut your finger"and "Mouse
mummies"
in Words sent this story
A personal story that I'll never forget happened
when I was 13, in the
early 1960s.
Grades six through nine were in separate schools
called junior high
schools. Most of the girls were just starting to
menstruate and were embarrassed.
Our gym teacher (physical education) was a nice lady
named Miss Fisher.
She made sure there were Kotex machines in all the
girls' restrooms.
Knowing we were all mortally embarrassed about our
new status, she arranged
a code with all the teachers. At that time, you didn't
just get up and leave
class to go to the restroom. The idea was that classes
were only 45 minutes
long and breaks between them were 10 minutes, so just
"hold it."
(I can't believe we tolerated it but that was before
we began to question
authority!) If you just HAD to leave class (to visit
the Kotex machine)
we were assured that if we told the
teacher "I have to go
see Miss Fisher" that we'd be excused with no
questions asked and not
refused permission to leave. Naturally, this statement
was made by meekly
tiptoeing up to the desk and whispering in the
teacher's ear.
At mid-year, a teacher resigned and was replaced by
a young, good-looking
male teacher in his early 20s. Yes, you guessed it.
Nobody told him about
the code. When one of the girls (thank goodness it
wasn't me !) made this
whispered, urgent request, the teacher blurted out
loud, "Why
do you have to go see Miss Fisher right in the middle
of math class??!!"
Several of the boys snickered (they certainly knew),
the poor girl blushed
beet red and the rest of the girls nearly fainted.
"Oh, Sir, you had
better let her go !!!!" we chorused. He let her go,
but begrudgingly!
This is a long story but worth reading!
I went to grade school in the very early 70s in a
very small community.
This particular school had K-7 housed in one
school. We had one girls'
restroom and one boys' restroom for the entire
school. The school had
been built in the early 1900s originally as a high
school and the restrooms
doubled as the locker rooms. So since they had
built a brand-new shiny
high school the "little kids" went to the old high
school.
Someone (I am assuming male) had the brilliant idea
of removing the
Kotex machine from the girls' restroom. Well, most
women would have the
insight to know that girls start menstruating
anywhere from about nine
years old and up and of course this school went to the
seventh grade (12-13
years old). Meanwhile, the Kotex machine was
tossed aside but it quickly
became evident they needed to put it back.
Well, the school being the disorganized mess that it
was the machine
was kept in a back room off from the music room. One
day the janitor decided
he would carry it through the classroom and back up to
the girls' restroom. So
the whole fourth-grade class saw it being carried
out. One of the boys
asked the janitor (Old John we called him) what the
machine was. John simply
said, "It's a candy bar machine for the girls."
You could see every boy in that room turn red with
anger. "How
dare they do that!" Heck, we could only have chocolate
milk on Fridays
and now the girls could get candy bars anytime they
wanted!
The music teacher was some ancient old man they had
dug up from some
retirement home (well, it seemed like it). He was
clueless. He finished
class and sent us back to our regular
teacher. The boys were still
fuming. A few of the girls knew it was a joke but
quite a few, including
myself, thought we really did have a candy bar
machine!
So all week long the boys were plotting how to get
into the girls' restroom
and get a candy bar. The problem was
that you had to walk right
past the principal's office; the door beside it was
the girls' restroom. Since
it had been a locker room it was huge with much of the
original equipment
removed and with the high ceilings and concrete walls
and floors. Echoes
were terrible in there.
I of course asked my mother the next day for a dime
to get a candy bar
(she thought nothing of it since that was the going
rate for a candy bar
at the time). I quickly discovered they were not
candy bars but the
"things" mother had in the bathroom hidden under the
sink. But
the boys were still going to get in there and get some
themselves.
So we were back in music class and the teacher was
not very "with
it." The boys started asking a few at a time to go the
restroom but
they were sneaking into the girls' restroom instead
and purchasing a "candy
bar."
Well, they were not telling each other,
evidently. Because after
about 10 boys went to the restroom the principal heard
them. He sent
the school secretary, who must have been at least 85
years old at the time
(no kidding), into the girls' restroom to see what was
going on. She
walked in (I was in there more to be nosy than
anything but using the guise
of needing to "go") and here was a nine-year-old boy
standing
in a pile of open Modess maxipads the boys had been
purchasing and opening
them, discovering what they were and throwing them
down on the floor. She
went absolutely wild, screaming and going bonkers
and ordering people
out of the rest room! I thought, "Wow, this must
be really bad!"
About a month later they started sex education
classes (it had never
been done before). They did mention menstruation
to the girls but not
to the boys. I am not sure what they told the boys but
I was utterly convinced
I was pregnant in the fifth grade because I had been
kissed by a boy. It
was a really screwed-up time.
I was 11 years old when I started menstruating. I
used tampons for months
until the flow was really heavy. My mother
suggested I use a pad, so
I did. A day or two later she asked how the pads
were working out. I
said, "Pretty good, but they really hurt when you rip
them off." My
mother, being the understanding woman that she is,
said, "You idiot! You're
suppose to stick them onto your panties, not
yourself!!" [There are
other versions of this on these pages.]
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