"Price-Check On Tampons!"

Hey, Ladies . . . remember when you used to be embarrassed to buy tampons and maxi pads at the supermarket? It never failed, you would ALWAYS get a male checker and it was just so awkward because you knew that HE KNEW you were on your period. Remember how humiliating that was?

I used to be so self-conscious about buying feminine hygiene products that whenever I had to go down that aisle in the grocery store, I'd stall and delay until every shopper left that aisle and when I was certain I was alone, only then would I grab my box of pads or tampons and throw them hurriedly into the cart and wheel it as fast as I could out of there.

But the thing about having a period is that it means you are still young and fertile and useful to the world. You don't realize how privileged you are to belong to the society of menstruating women until menopause hits and your membeship expires. Like, forever. You are officially an old woman.

So the other day, my teenaged daughter asked me to pick up a box of tampons for her at the store. I didn't think anything of it until I got to the checkout stand. And then a funny thing happened. Instead of hiding the box under a package of tortillas (and there's a sick joke in there somewhere), I proudly -- yes, I said PROUDLY -- set the box on the checkout belt all by itself so that it stood out among the other grocery items. I actually WANTED the male checker to think I was bleeding profusely, quite possibly hemorrhaging!

Perhaps it was awkward for him to be handling these items that would eventually be used in a woman's most private area. But not for me because this box of tampons shouted to the world that I was YOUNG and FERTILE and USEFUL, again. This box of tampons said that if I wanted to, I could have that checker's baby. Or the baby of the man standing behind me. Or the baby of the guy working the deli.

In fact, these tampons sitting on the checkout belt screamed to everyone who saw them that I could have my PICK of fathers for my baby because I'm still having periods, La-Di-Da, and doesn't that make me so very young and special?

Of course it was all a big, fat lie. But it was fun pretending. And I think I fooled him. I think the checker really believed that the tampons were mine. And it made me feel so young again.