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oh how i hated aunt flo

Some day when I am old and dying and my great-grandchildren are gathered around my deathbed and they say "Gramma, tell us the one invention that changed your life the most," I am going to say, "Tampons."

I had a nightmare about high school last night and it involved this:

belkot80.jpg

If you are too young to remember those things, you have no idea how lucky you are.

Comments

Anyone tells you that's TMI, send them to take a look at this....

Work friendly, as long as they can't see the mental images...

shudder

a torture device, to be sure.

It wasn't a Carrie nightmare, was it?

I remember once when a guy in one of my classes struck an etheral [for a guy] pose, and said "because."

Ask your granny what that was about.

Gene:

I'm pretty sure that no matter how old I was, I would never have had to use one of those. My cycle was so irregular and all.

Have you seen the diapers? They still make those fuckers for some reason.

What in the hell is that thing? It looks evil.

Aargh! Not the belt! Not the belt!

Wouldn't know anything about such things...but you have to read Connie Willis' short story "Even the Queen." I thought it was hilarious...and women would probably appreciate it much more.

Years later, in a semi-autobiographical piece, Stephen King wrote that "Carrie" was inspired by another student at his high school, one of several (male and female) who were tormented mercilessly and beyond all reason by the other kids. Most of them were dirt poor, meaning their home lives were crap, too.

The psychokinetic revenge of Carrie was invented, of course, but according to King, the unexpected menarche in the girls' locker room actually happened.

I am so very thankful to be young enough to have never had to deal with those things! Yick!

This reminds me of an old booklet my mom once showed me from when she was in junior high.

It was a booklet from a tampon company called "Modess", (sp?) and according to her, it was given to all the girls in junior high back in the '50s.

You just had to laugh at this booklet, though. I don't mean nervous laughter because it was discussing menstrual cycles. I mean good, hearty laughter because it went out of its way to talk as little about menstruation as it could. This book played everything so innocent, I could probably read it out loud on Sesame Street and not be censored.

To give you an idea:
* girls didn't menstruate, or have a period, they had a "special time".
* girls weren't going through puberty, they were "blossoming".

I swear, if I hadn't recieved a proper sex-ed class when I was going through school (the '80s, BTW), I probably would've believed, after reading this booklet, that once a month, women had the ability to turn everything they touched into butterflies, rainbows and sunflowers via a secret power to which only they are privvy!

"Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret."

I'm not sure I want to know why she (and your generation) needed a belt.

JC

Ah, another one who named "it" Aunt Flo. Heh.

In junior high I barely escaped the belt - school nurse would supply us with those things sans belt. We used safety pins.

Horrors...how did we ever survive puberty?

shudder I think whoever designed those wanted girls to think of them as chastity belts. Gaah. And those pads were big enough to wash your car with. Yay Tampax!

backing away in horror how could you post that pic of those vile things! I had erased them from my memory. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! My aunt who raised me had 3 boxes left over in her closet from her childbearing years. On that fateful day in 1981, no less, she gave them to me. The horror... the horror...

Oh.My.God. The horror! I was spared having to wear one of those belts by a scant year or so. The ones with the zip strip had just come out around the time I started. But I remember my mom and my three older sisters using them. Also, remember the size of the box that those freaking hammocks came in?? It was gargantuan! I swear it was 2-3 feet tall. No way to inconspicuously slip that in along with your purchases at the drugstore…(nail polish, mascara, HUGE BOX OF KOTEX, shampoo, chewing gum.) nuh-uh! Thanks to you and all who commented for the belly-laughs. I agree. Tampax saved the world.