Humilation in Knoxville

I hate it when I get home at the end of the day, look in the mirror, and discover a little black thing lodged in my teeth. I always think, “Well, it was way off to the side. The seventeen people I had meetings with, or talked to face to face for the last four hours probably didn’t even notice.” Yeah, sure. But the worst of it is that none of those people told me about it. What’s the reluctance? When have you ever pointed something like that out to a good friend and had them snap, “Fuck you, bitch. It’s there on purpose.” I get it—our embarrassment comes with empathy—we know how we feel when the little green thing happens to us, and we’re reluctant to cause someone else similar embarrassment. But holy hell people, suck it up and tell me when there’s a poppy seed in my teeth. Fortunately, some people do overcome their own feelings and help a gal out of a potentially mortifying situation.

A million years ago I had a job as a Client Services Manager for a marketing software company. That may sound fun or impressive or glamorous (or not), but what it really meant was that I went out to our customer sites and figured out how they were using our software so we could improve it, and help them improve how they used it. It was actually dull as dandruff, and meant that I had to do a lot of flying, which I loathed (and still do).

I was on my way home from a trip to Knoxville, TN. I had been visiting HGTV, which was still in its infancy (and, may I say, had the bitchiest marketing person I’ve ever encountered—Tamara, wherever you are, I hope the Starbucks closest to you sucks, and I totally heard you say you didn’t want to give me a t-shirt, and therefore fuck you), and I was at the airport waiting for my flight. The dress code for client visits was “professional,” and since I had come directly from their offices, I was wearing a blouse and skirt in the same pattern (so it looked like a dress). I would describe the skirt as, “swirly.” Because of the dress code, I was also wearing panty hose (UGH). I slipped in and used the restroom, checked myself very carefully, and skipped out across the concourse to sit down in a row of chairs across from the ladies room.

I hadn’t been seated for more than a minute when a kindly looking grandmother type came and sat down on the edge of the seat next to me. She placed her hand gently on my forearm and leaned forward anxiously, clearly the bearer of distressing news.

“Honey,” she said in a low voice with a sweet Southern drawl, “your skirt’s tucked up in your panty hose.”

The scene of my humiliation

 I…WHAT?!?

“Oh, thank you,” I stammered, humiliated and no doubt blushing fire engine red, but managing to extricate the skirt from the waistband of the hose with a lot of unladylike wriggling and squirming, which I’m sure made it look like my underwear was the best place I could think of to hide my pet hamster so I could get it through security unnoticed. I prayed that my swirly skirt was voluminous enough that the two sides of it covered my backside as I tripped from the door of the ladies room to my seat (it was possible, but, let’s be honest, probably wishful thinking).

This is not why I was squirming

“Well, I had to tell you, honey,” she said, kindly. “It happened to me one time. At church. And no one told me.”

I…WHAT?!?

I was appalled. I mean, I was in the Knoxville airport. I’m confident I’ve never seen any of the people who were on that concourse that day again since. (I could be wrong—maybe last month when I was walking through LAX there was a woman I passed at one of the United gates who nudged her friend and said, “You see that insane looking woman yelling at the four kids to keep it moving so they can get to Disneyland before Labor Day? Well, I totally saw her underpants in the Knoxville airport fifteen years ago.”) And even if I haven’t ever seen them again, it was still super embarrassing.

But that poor woman who came to my rescue—she had to go back to church the next Sunday and face an entire churchful of people who had gotten a good long look at her Hanes for Her. And not one of them said anything to her about it. Can you imagine? Mingling with the rest of the congregation after the service, having a cup of coffee, shaking hands with Pastor Brooks and complimenting him on the sermon, arranging to meet Mabel Ogelthorpe and Viola Hightower for cards on Wednesday. All with her skirt tucked up in her hose, and her panties plainly visible to everyone.

I don’t know about you, but I think I’d have switched religions.

 

This Post Contains A LOT of TMI: You Have Been Warned

Since you regular readers are four of my very best friends, and based on what I’ve read on some other blogs, it’s clear we’re all comfortable with a little TMI, I’m going to put this out there.

I am 45 years old, and I am still embarrassed when I have to buy tampons.

There. I said it.

I know, "it" happens to almost all women (except those lucky bitches who have, one way or another, rid themselves of the massive pain in the ass that is the monthly menstrual cycle; I long for menopause), and it’s a natural part of life and blah blah blah, but I can’t help it. I reach for that box of Tampax, or that package of Stay Free Maxi Pads, and I’m fourteen years old again. Why don’t I just wear an enormous sign that says, “GUESS WHAT TIME OF THE MONTH IT IS FOR ME?” What's more, inevitably when I'm buying them, every fucking guy in the entire store needs something that's on the same aisle with the feminine products. I can feel their eyes following me as I make sure I get the right things (yes, I know, not really, but that's how it feels, you know?). Creeps.

Yes, I have given birth three times, with all the delicacy and modesty that implies. The first time I started a vaginal birth, and I’m convinced that every single person who worked in that hospital, with the possible exception of the woman who ran the gift shop and one of the part time maintenance guys (he wasn’t working that day), stuck their head between my knees and had a look at my…you know. I ended up with an emergency C-section, which meant that the twenty three people in the operating room got to look not only at The Place We Mean When We Talk About Feeling Not So Fresh, but at what that looked like from the point of view of my unborn child. It was a very special moment for all of us, I’m sure. I know it was for me. Fortunately 17 hours of labor had kind of dulled my sense of embarrassment (that, plus there were all those people who’d already seen everything anyway, so there wasn’t much more I could offer them in the way of oversharing).

And god help me when I’m buying these things and the checker is a man. I’ve been known to go to another store to avoid having to have a guy check me out.

I was in New England a few weeks ago when A Need Arose. I was running an errand (OK, fine, I was going to the liquor store—and really, Massachusetts, please join the rest of us in the 21^st century and sell wine in the goddamned grocery stores) and figured I’d pop in someplace and pick up a box of tampons. I looked for a CVS or similar and when I came up short, was forced to seek out a convenience store for the task. (Dear Town of North Andover, feel free to reach out to CVS and suggest a location for them in your area. You have the world’s worst Cracker Barrel—it was worse than any other one I’ve been in, and that’s saying something because Cracker Barrel is pretty nasty to start with, but this one literally made me barf—but you don’t seem to have a drug store? That’s just weird. If nothing else, your residents need access to Pepto Bismol and Tums to help them get over eating at that shitty Cracker Barrel. Love, Me.)

I knew I was going to be annoyed at the selection a convenience store would have. Most likely the only thing that would be available would be “Regular.” Since I’m clearly going full TMI on you poor folks today, I’ll just share that I’m more of a “Super Plus” kinda gal most of the time. We’ll leave it at that. I want you to be able to come back here without fear that you’ll be subjected to too many graphic details.

There was a convenience store next to the liquor store, so I checked it out. Sure enough, the checker was a guy. Well, fuck that. Next.

I drove back toward the hotel in which we were staying, and remembered there was a gas station with an attached convenience store. Since I was running out of time, as well as options, this was it, and if there was a male checker, well, that was just going to be how it was.

Guess what? There was not a male checker. There were two goddamned male checkers. And a male customer who stuck his head around the point of sale display between us to look for a different flavor of Copenhagen or Trident or something just as I had gently and discretely laid my intended purchase on the counter in front of Butch (I’m assuming he was wearing his own shirt, and therefore the name on the tag was his).

Here’s the really shitty thing: I blush.

If I get embarrassed because I think I’ve made a mistake, or because I feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about (these two things happen regularly at work), or if I just feel like I’ve said something stupid, I turn bright red. Naturally this also happens when I feel like I’m in an awkward situation. Like, oh, I don’t know, buying tampons from a guy named Butch in a convenience store and having a male customer stick his head around and see exactly what I’m buying. You know, hypothetically speaking something like that would make me blush. And when I feel myself blush, I feel stupider than I did when the thing that made me blush happened, which I’m sure makes me blush more. I hate my blood vessels.

It’s clear that like my dislike of eggplant, or lack of interest in Science Fiction, this embarrassment over the purchase of feminine products is not something I’m going to “get over” when I get older. In fact, I suspect that the only thing that will enable me to get over this is actual menopause. I’ll spare you the gory details of how things are going in that department. I’ve probably done enough oversharing for one post. Or one lifetime. So I guess I shouldn't add that it’s been recommended that I get an IUD. Oops. Sorry about that. I’ll stop talking now. I think that’s for the best. I’ve started blushing, and that’s usually an indicator that I should just shut up.