Being a woman means different things to each woman, but there are some things we can all relate to, and probably wish we did not understand so well.
Kvetching about “that time of the month” was something that happened occasionally between my female roommates and me. This is my all-time favorite from our griping sessions. (Note: names have been changed to protect, umm, mostly me, since I did not ask if I could share these stories.)
Connie tells of a lecture she attended where a male teacher was detailing the biological facts of a female menstrual cycle. Matter of factly, he commented that the “uterus lining sloughs itself off and…” He did not get to finish this sentence because Connie, at the word “sloughs”, immediately yelled out, “Sloughs itself off??? SLOUGHS itself off? Try RIPS itself from inside and TEARS its way down!” Hopefully the professor learned his lesson and was not so casual in his approach the next time he lectured on the subject.
Another college roommate, Lydia, was buying tampons at the store. As luck would have it, for some reason the scanner would not register the price. The clerk called out over the loudspeakers with a harsh nasal intonation, “I need a price check on Tampax.” The reply, from a man who had no experience with this product, and was trying to make sense of the brand name, clearly showed that he thought the clerk asked about ‘thumbtacks’, “Is that the kind you put in with your thumb or with a hammer?” My ultra-shy friend had one of those I-wish-I-could-bury-myself-in-a-hole-right-now moments. It was a long time before she could laugh about this transaction. Ah, the joys of certain elements of womanhood! Good thing it is not like that all the time, eh?
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