I remember being in the fifth grade. 1983, Catholic school, plaid jumpers, navy blue knees socks. I was 10 and already starting to thicken towards puberty. The jumper fit me poorly, restraining budding breasts and providing little coverage for my soon to be ample hips and backside. This was before I had any idea what a train-wreck my reproductive organs were to become – but that is a story for another day. I was just hoping to get my period and be like all the other girls in their ill-fitting jumpers.  They separated the boys from the girls one afternoon. They took us to a little anteroom near the gym and showed us a short movie. This was the early 80s – there was a film projector and a pull down screen like a giant stained window shade and a bunch of uncomfortable metal folding chairs laid out in neat rows. There were about 12-15 of us corralled into that room. Most of us had been thrown together since kindergarten and we were happy that something had interrupted the mundane routine of fifth grade. The film wasn’t graphic. It was poorly animated and sterile, made in the 60s or 70s. It used proper, clinical words for our parts – cervix, vagina, labia. Some of us giggled. Some just stared. They gave us handbooks too – just as sterile and technical. Little brochures of what was to come, “Welcome to Menstruation! Population = You!” It took about an hour. I remember someone crying and running to the girls room the teachers rushing in to calm her down. I just took it all in. My mom wasn’t one to talk about such things but I was a reader and precocious so I knew the whys and wherefores of the dreaded “curse” or “Aunt Flo(w).” I got it. You got your period if you didn’t get pregnant. It was nature’s way of telling you your womb still had a vacancy sign on it. At 22 that is a relief; at 10 it was like saying this is what will happen if Rick Springfield doesn’t take you to McDonald’s every 4th Saturday. I knew Rick wasn’t coming – so I also knew I was doomed to deal with this every month. Sometime in the spring of 1984 it reared its ugly head. I distinctly remember it being a Monday night because my mom stayed home from bowling so she could buy me some Kotex and put a wet rag on my forehead. The pad feeling like a diaper notwithstanding, I was fine. I told my friends. I carried a conspicuous Jordache purse to school for the next few days to hold my pads, but other than that it was pretty humdrum.  A few months later, summer rolled around. It was the last day of school and I was having friends over to celebrate another plaid jumpered year in the books. I had my “friend” and I wanted to go swimming. We had an above ground pool in the back yard and I regularly swam til my fingers pruned and my hair was a chlorine matted orangey mess. “NO”, mom said. “You can’t bleed in the pool. You can’t wear a pad in the pool.”  I was not about to sit on the deck and watch my friends cavorting in My pool and playing Marco Polo without me! I was no fool. I had been in the Feminine Hygiene aisle of CVS. I knew there were tampons. Thanks to Judy Blume and Glamour magazine I also knew that I could go in the pool if I used them. And I knew my mother had some. There were always 2 in her purse, in a baby blue plastic case right next to the Big Red gum and a half eaten Fifth Avenue bar. (Who eats half a candy bar?) “Can I use a tampon?” I asked matter of factly. She just stared. It was as if I’d asked her if I could get a tattoo of a penis on my face. “Ma?” What she said next was probably the first time I realized my mother was mildly off her rocker. Hers was a subtle psychosis – it manifested slowly but steadily over the years – but it was definitely there. “No, you can’t use a tampon! You’re a virgin!” My first instinct was to say, “Are you sure?” but I figured that wouldn’t get me any closer to my cool blue chlorinated paradise. So I opted for, “What does that have to do with it?” If Google had existed in 1983 you would have found “Can a virgin use a tampon?” in my search history, along with “Does Tommy Howell have a girlfriend?” and “Do Members Only jackets come in purple?” I had done my research. I read that foolish pamphlet cover to cover. I had also found a book in the library detailing the ins and outs of teen menstruation. Virgin and tampon user are not mutually exclusive. No one in history has ever lost her virginity to a Tampax slender regular.  Back to my mom. Her face was about to split open and fire was about to shoot from her eyes, but she had no comeback.  She begrudgingly showed me her Tampax stash under the bathroom sink and she waited outside the door while I inserted. I followed the directions in the box – foot on the toilet and everything. I had no issues. I put on my swimsuit and bounded into the yard. Later that night I informed my mother we would need more Tampax – because pool or no pool I was never wearing a pad again and with the exception of after pregnancy and a few surgical procedures I never did. To my mother’s great relief, my hymen stayed intact… for a few more years anyway.