Is That a Pizzebab in Your Pants?

Nope: It's a pad.

1996 was the summer of the pool. I was there all of the time: getting tweeted at by the lifeguards for running, frequenting the snack bar, sneaking in the occasional game of Sharks and Minnows, living the dream. I had a Speedo tan line, and I smelled like chlorine. I was a pool rat with braces.

It was supposed to be a great summer. Then came the period. It offended me, and I didn't want to talk about it with anyone, especially not my mother. But she found out eventually and led me to the closet to get what we deemed "supplies." She handed me boxes and boxes of tampons as if I were a squirrel storing them up for the winter, telling me that if I needed anymore "supplies" that I could just come and get them.

I was down with the tampon. It was OK by me. But I didn't think it would be wise to wear one in the pool. I reached this conclusion after reading one of those Most Embarrassing Moments stories in YM. In this particular story, a girl had gone to the pool with her "crush" and jumped in, causing her tampon to disappear into her internal abyss. She then had to get it extracted by a doctor. The story got 4 stars for "mega mortifying."

I opted for a much more intelligent decision at the pool: One Kotex pad for me, thanks. It was almost 2-inches thick, and it prevented me from walking in a straight line. It was kind of like a diaper. Needless to say, it don't not sit well in my Speedo. I looked like I had a bad case of penis envy and had decided to retaliate by stuffing my suit.

The junk in my trunk was beyond obvious when I removed my Umbros. I knew this and jumped into the water as quickly as possible. I stayed in for about 30 minutes, and when I jumped out, I had practically forgotten about the pad - until of course I started walking back to my towel and the water retained by Ms. Kotex began pouring out. It looked like I was peeing, and I could've sworn that the hot babes (read: the 14-year-old boys) in the pool had noticed. I managed to walk calmly back to my towel, grab it, wrap it round my waist, snag my mini-backpack and sprint for the bathroom. Once safely inside a stall, the pad was out, and the tampon was in. I reasoned that even if the tampon torpedoed through me during a cannon ball, it could never be worse than being a well-hung, 12-year-old girl.