Oh boy…. This seems like the right post to recount the time when I was 14 or 15 and didn’t really understand how tampons worked yet. I got my period at the start of a family beach house week. And I still wanted to be in the water, yknow? So no pads. So I went to put in a tampon. Except I didn’t realize you dispose of that plastic outer shell. So I left it in.

Later, I’m on the beach digging a large hole and making a castle with my cousins and little siblings. Something doesn’t feel right, so I look down and see that plastic plunger thing on the tampon sticking out in the crotch of my swimsuit. I make a run for it back to the house, baffling everyone. Still mortified 12 years later that someone might have seen that bizarre sight. Yeesh.