The first time I bought tampons was at the age of nine. My older sister would send me to the store to buy tampons for her. I didn’t know exactly what they were used for, but I knew it was embarrassing and had something to do with punctuation: you know, a comma…or a semi-colon…or an ampersand or something like that.
On my first trip to the store, I had to ask where the tampons were located. Over the P.A. system the manager roared, “Susie, could you help Billy here find the tampons on aisle 3. He’s about six years old, four and a half feet tall, brown hair, and kinda nervous looking. He probably needs some Tampax-brand tampons.” By the end of the public announcement, all the women at the front of the store were smiling sweetly at me. Susie came over to help me and she’s this cute, bubbly 17-year old. She took me by the hand and escorted me to aisle 3.
“By the way,” I huffed on the way, “I’m not six years old. I’m nine. I’m just small for my age.”
“Well, you are a fine looking nine-year-old boy Billy.”
We get to aisle 3 and it’s like, literally an entire aisle full of a million different tampons.
“Do you want regular-size or super-size?”
“Sheesh, I don’t know. What do you recommend?”
“Well, do you have a regular flow or a really heavy flow?”
“A regular flow of what? Wait, this isn’t for me. It’s for my big sister.”
“Okay, so does she have a regular flow or a heavy flow?”
“How would I know? Oh, just super-size it.”
“Billy, do you even know what this is for?”
“Of course I do. They’re for . . . um, ah, . . . I sort of know . . . um. Actually, Susie, I haven’t got a clue.”
So Susie begins explaining about the birds and the bees right there on aisle 3. She gets out the instructions included with the tampons, and it’s even got a diagram! Just then the manager’s voice booms over the P.A. system, “Susie, I need you to help Jenny up here. She's buying her big brother some Trojan condoms.”
“Sheesh,” I lamented. “Just when it was really getting interesting.”
Fortunately, when I got home, my sister squawked, “Supers? I wanted Regulars. Take these back and exchange them.”
No problem, Sis!
So back I went to Susie for more sex-ed training, which included a thorough and riveting discussion on when to use regulars and when to use supers. When I got home, my sister asked, “What took you so long?”
“Uh, traffic?”
“Billy, you walked to the store.”
Things didn’t get much better when I got married and had to buy condoms for birth-control. Yes, long ago, condoms were once used for birth-control. But then to significantly increase sales, the condom companies invented and facilitated the distribution of sexually transmitted diseases, and then manufactured and sold more condoms to stop the transmission of sexual diseases from one person to another.
After walking all over the store and not finding the condom aisle, I finally accosted a male clerk and whispered, “Hey, Buddy, where are your condoms?”
He dutifully opened his wallet and pulled out two.
“No. Not yours. I mean your store’s condoms. You know, for sale?”
“Oh, yeah. I knew that. My bad.” And over the P.A. system, he bellowed, “Hey, Susie. Billy’s back. He’s about 16 years old now and he wants condoms. Could you show him where the condoms are located?”
I grabbed the microphone and yelled, “Hey, everybody. I’m not 16. I’m 22 years old and I’m married. So, you can stop smiling at me.”
“Billy,” Susan gushed when she arrived, “it’s so good to see you again! You’ve grown so much.” Then she looked a little closer and said, “Well, no. I guess not much really.”
I heard myself thinking out loud, “Susie, I think your tampon lessons on aisle 3 maybe stunted my growth.”
“What was that?”
“Uh, nothing.”
“Well,” she said cheerfully as she took my hand, “let me take you back by the pharmacy where we keep the condoms.”
On the way to the pharmacy, as I discretely removed my hand from hers, I explained to Susie that I now went by “Bill” not “Billy.”
Then just as I was wondering how she was going to demonstrate condom usage, she stopped by the produce section and picked up a nice, ripe banana.
“Um, Susie, that is a bit too small,.”
“For what, Billy?”
“Sheesh. I don’t know. For your lunch?”
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Okay, so, maybe I embellished the story a bit, but my big sister did send me to buy her tampons and I had no clue what I was doing and asking for help was really awkward.