Total Humiliation. Period.

If you have been reading this blog for a while you will know that I exhibit a stunning ability to publicly embarrass myself.  I can strike at any time, in front of any person.  It could be the pastor at church, the guy pumping the septic tank, my kid’s teacher, it doesn’t matter.  Every meeting is an opportunity for disaster.  There’s only one group of people, with whom I have never had to worry about embarrassing myself.  My children.

My two sons, aged 13 and 11 have seen me at my worst since the day they were born.  Bloated, pimply, bra-less, with my hair spazzing all over the place, they've walked in on me in the bathroom, seen me burp and fart.  They’re used to it.  They don’t bat an eye.  If any other person saw me like that I’d die, but with them?  Meh, whatever. 

I really thought they were a safe haven for my pride. That I could not possibly face embarrassment in front of them.  I was so wrong. 

A little background if you please.  We live in the country.  We are not attached to municipal services and have our own septic system.  In a previous humiliating incident, (please see The Great Septic System Debacle posted on November 23, 2015), I was schooled in all of the things that can and cannot be flushed down into my delicate septic system by the very handsome Septic Steve.

"I'm here to service your system Mrs. Lambert"

Number one among the non-flushables are tampons.  They cause serious problems with the system, clogging it up and throwing everything out of whack.

In an effort to avoid any further humiliation in front of Septic Steve, I have treated that system like a newborn babe.  Nothing goes down the toilet that isn’t on the strict, pre-approved list.  This has been a good policy.  The system has been humming along with no issues for two and a half years now. 

This dedication to proper septic maintenance has however created a new sub-genre of problems, the most pressing being how to deal with the non-flushables particularly the aforementioned tampons.

FYI

Now normally this would be a non-issue.  You throw yucky things into the garbage can and go about your day.  We have a trash can in our bathroom with a swing-top lid that does the job nicely.  Throw two dogs into the mix though and we suddenly require a more foolproof plan. 

 Devil Dog                        Demon Spawn

In an effort to keep my pups from foraging for goodies in the bathroom trash I keep the door closed, especially if we are going out and nobody will be home to keep the little fur demons in check.  Apparently though, no one else in the house is aware of this common-sense action as a few times I have come home to find used tissues and toilet paper rolls chewed up all over the floor.

Thus was the case this week, when we returned home from a family outing to the movies.  The boys ran into the house ahead of me, and I had just barely gotten my boots off when I heard, “Hey Mom!  The dogs dragged your tampons all over the floor.  It’s really gross!”

Oh. My. Gad. 

I bolted up the stairs to find, all over the kitchen, living room and dining room floor, about 20 disgusting, USED tampons in varying states of being gnawed on by my dogs.  My face turned the crimson red of, well, you know.  My two boys stood there with their arms crossed over their chests, shaking their heads at me like this was my fault.  Like they had to suffer this disgusting and dirty indignation because of me.  My husband yelled up from the basement, “You’re gross!  Isn’t Mom gross?"  Thanks for the support dear. 

I was mortified.  These are my children!  Boys no less!  Of course they know about girls and periods and stuff.  They learn about it in school and I have explained it all to them as well. But I mean really, they don’t need to see it with their own eyes!  I ran around in a panic yelling, “Don’t look, don’t look", while trying to pick them all up as if that would somehow preserve their innocence.

Now, I come from a softer generation.  When I was a teenager, we did not discuss our periods outside of the hushed confines of the school change room.  The mere idea that a clean, wrapped rouge tampon or pad might fall out of your school bag in front of a boy was an incomprehensible horror to which the only reasonable response would be to cut your hair, change your name and move to another province.

I didn’t even buy my own period products until I was living on my own in college.  My mom bought them.  They just regularly showed up in the bathroom cupboard.

When I was in 8^th grade, one of my classmates asked a couple of us gals to accompany her off school grounds so she could go to the drugstore over the lunch hour.  We were half way there when she told us she needed to buy tampons.  The rest of the girls and I just about died. 

“No way!”

“You’re gonna buy what!?”

 “I would never!”

We lived in a very small town.  In my mind going into the tiny drugstore and buying tampons was akin to taking out an add in the county newspaper and announcing to everyone that you had you period!

She looked at us like we were a bunch of weirdos and replied, “Well, if you’re not gonna buy them who will?"  

In my mind I was thinking, “My Mom duh”.  We all watched wide eyed as she took a box of Tampax up to the counter, handed them to the teenage boy behind the till and paid for them.  The rest of us stood there in awe of her courage and bravery.  Stacey, wherever you are, you were an inspiration!

Now whereas periods were a no-go subject when I was a teen, nowadays, at least among the girls my sons know, periods are no big deal.  And this is not a bad thing.  It shouldn’t be a big deal.  But I was still more than a little taken back when my son, then in the sixth grade, asked me one day if I knew what Shark Week was.

“Yes” I said. “It’s a week of shark documentaries that they show on the Discovery Channel.  Your Dad and I watch it every year”.  Duh.

“No Mom”, he says grinning, “Shark Week.”, (in finger quotes), wink, wink.

Oh my God.  I was incredulous! “Is that what the girls are calling their period now!!!??"  He laughed and said, “yeah”.

Now, my brain split in two here.  Part of me was thinking, “Oh my God that is brilliant!”  The other half was thinking, “Oh my God!!  The girls in your class talk to you about their periods!!"  I just couldn’t fathom it.

So, even though it wasn’t my fault, and periods are nothing to be ashamed of and perfectly natural, and the fact that my boys seemed pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, I was doubly horrified when about 10 minutes after the initial discovery my son yelled out, “Mom!  You missed one! It’s on the couch!”  Juh-hay-zus.

A couple of days passed and I was still smarting a bit from the embarrassment but had for the most part managed to blot the incident from my brain.  I was sitting on the sofa reading a book, thinking, this will all soon be a distant memory.  I‘m sure everyone else has already forgotten.  I had just taken a sip of tea when my youngest pipes up very nonchalantly,

“Oh, by the way Mom, the dog ate one of your dirty tampons and pooped it out in the driveway”.

Cue the spit take.  “Whhaaaaaattttt?”

“Yeah, Alex and I found it while we were playing basketball.  We called it, (wait for it), a Tampoop”.

I stared at him gape jawed for 15 full seconds before I burst out laughing so hard I thought I would explode.  God I love my kids.  Only they could make me appreciate the absolute absurdity of this situation. 

So, the takeaway here is that a) I no longer have any pride whatsoever, b) periods are normal and nothing to be embarrassed about for either boys or girls and c) all sweet, loving dogs have an inner demon inside who likes to lay bare your most private bits and shit them out in the driveway for all to see.

 Let me know in the comments if your dog has every caused you such egregious embarrassment and remember, at least this didn't happen to you!

Peace out!

Michy