Bleed

*warning* if you are at all queasy or over-sensitive regarding all things menstural, then skip this post; it is definitely not for you

I am a woman, still blessed with the ability to procreate. (That is, if there is a partner with the correct plumbing who is also technically able to procreate and we get together to... procreate.)
Therefore, I bleed.

In the beginning of my Womanhood cycle, at the tender age of almost-twelve, I was as regular as the Moon and the tides. Clocks were programmed by my cycle. Then I got pregnant at twenty-one, out of wedlock and scared out of my mind. Then I had a disasterous miscarriage, alone and in a state of health that should have been assisted by a docter and followed by a D&C, but wasn't. Since that time, I have been as erratic as the flight of a bird caught in a tornado.

For all of my flowing life, I have used Tampax tampons. Original regular. They are the only brand that fits comfortably within my narrow sheath and does not feel as though I am birthing an ostrich egg upon removal, causing me to screech with heated pain. At times, during the heaviest part of the flow, I would graduate to super tampons, still Tampax. And life has been grand.

Until now.

Who in the hell decided to "improve" Tampax? Who decided that giving them cute, colorful packaging, changing the applicator so the exterior has cute little divots to grip while... ummmm... how does one say this... to grip while one is loading(?) the tampon in its proper position would make them better? Who decided that another improvement would be to make them shorter and use less-adsorbent material so that I am bleeding all over my new clothes and new bedsheets? Who the hell was it???!

It had to be a man.