The Feminine Napkin Aisle: Friend or Foe?

March 6, 2008 - The Funnies - Tagged: , , , , , , , , - 1 comment

Once a month, I turn into a buffoon for an approximate 48 hours.

I don’t get mad, sad, angry or edgy, but rather clumsy and lacking all hand-eye coordination. I become tilted and start seeing through my brain’s special “objects are farther than they appear” eye hole.

So. I am constantly and very confidently ‘placing an item on the table’ when I’m actually placing it three centimetres from the surface of said table. (Read: dropping it on to the floor.) I am also always bumping into things that appear further away than they really are. Interestingly, I also become more naive and cartoonish than normal. Slower, even, which places me at a mere 25 movements ahead of a normal person.

The 48 hour period (see what I did there?!) I notice first thing in the a.m. as I attempt to have coffee. Rather than behaving like an adult, I slosh my coffee around all over myself and anyone close enough to be splattered. That’s my cue to shy away from large and heavy objects and people I like for 48 hours next.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible.

A while back, I stepped into my pharmacy and walked to The Feminine Napkin Aisle midway through the 48 hour period (AGAIN! FUN!) of buffoonery. It was then that I experienced a tunnelling of my vision and a racing of my heart.

1.37 km of seventeen brand names declaring a combination of at least three of the following varieties:
Regular
Long
Overnight
Heavy
Light
Medium
Skinny
With Wings
Without
Scented
Non scented
Will make you laugh
Super absorbent
Bunched sides
Not bunched sides
Thin
Incognito
Aggressively proud and loud
Diaper like
For the fat girl
For the skinny girl
For the thong
Dry weave
Plug
External
For the sporty girl
For the sloth
For the thinking woman
For you
For me
I scream
You scream
We scream

I became discombobulated and sad because I just wanted a simple Feminine Napkin (FN) and yet there I was standing ramrod style incapable of comprehending what all the fuss was about.

Why wings when I don’t want the FN to take flight?

And why bunched sides? Is that for the Insecure and Shy female?

What about the ones that appear to be 2 feet long? Are they being tucked into the backs of one’s turtle neck? Are they potential sleeping bags? Maybe they open into a parachute in summer and a toboggan during the winter?

And so. Through my buffoon eyes, I attempted a grab at one of the above combinations and knocked over quite nearly an entire shelf. FNs are bouncy and they sprawl out once freed from the confines of their shelving unit.

I could tell they were trying to make a run for freedom but they couldn’t (because they are inanimate objects, you see). I stood staring at perhaps 30 packs and boxes wondering why the store would place them in such clearly domino-like positioning. Also, I was wondering if men ‘perioded’ (HA HA HA!), what would we call their…plugs?

I even began to think how they looked comfortable enough for a lie down (the FNs, not the Plugs) and considering my state, I would have gladly taken a nap had it not been for the half-Man employee who darted over and looked accusingly at me while I stood watching as he re-shelved the array of FNs.

I tried to help, but dropped two more pillows and was asked rather rudely to “don’t” (like that’s a proper sentence?) and so instead answered with “I didn’t know they could make so much noise.”

“Whatever”, said half-Man, and the fat lady grumbled as I mumbled: “Sorry.”

Unlike the bouncy pillows of FNs, I immediately became sad and deflated and grabbed at the first pillow in my view, deciding that the A to the Q is: Foe.

(& p.s. Girls: Don’t send a boy to do your bidding; for the love of all things that make us girls and them boys buy your own. Otherwise, you might just as well ask the poor bastard to “pee sitting down”.)