The Day My Vagina Looked Like A Vikings Extra
When it comes to menstruation, I’ve been pretty lucky. For most of my life I’ve had six weeks between periods, then bleeding for exactly three days. It’s not so bad, though once a year I’ll have the cramps from hell. Of course now that I’m on birth control it’s a whole other thing and I miss those six week stretches of no cramps like crazy. Enough I might almost give up the birth control. Almost.
The Day My Vagina Looked Like A Vikings Extra
Last weekend we went to visit the boyfriend’s family. I remember the tension in my shoulders heading into the weekend. For a lot of reasons it was a very tense weekend due to events out of our control, and all we had to do was grin through the weekend. No problem, right?
I knew on the drive out to west Texas that I was In Big Trouble. I felt it. That pre-period bloating. The bit of a cramp. Awesome.
Now, if I’m being honest, I sort of knew it was coming and combined with the intense crazy we were expecting, I was prepared.
Friday I dosed up on sleeping pills.
Saturday was loaded with Midol and booze. Oh, cinnamon sugar vodka, how you made the world a better place…
Sunday we headed home. I swear, every mile we drove I felt my whole body relax a bit more. I was ready to be home, use my own shower, have a bath and really unwind.
We made a pit stop at Market Street, a grocery store, to grab a few things and meet some new gaming people.
I went into the bathroom, because wowmygod I had to pee after a drive like that, and by the time I’d peeled my leggings down…it was everywhere.
I mean–everywhere.
Let me just pause here to say that though birth control has made my flow heavier, I had yet to experience an overflow. Seriously. I’ve never had it happen. I really had no idea what one was like, and didn’t want to.
Well, I found out in the bathroom of the fancy pants grocery store.
Part of me will never forget sitting on the toilet and looking down at the blood. It was seriously like looking at an extra from the cast of the History channel’s show, Vikings. There was blood on my white, brand new shirt. It was on my foot. WTF? All down my inner leg. The floor. The toilet. My arm.
For a moment I thought I had to be dying, because this much blood should not be okay.
Since I was alone in the bathroom I let out a few choice curses, because what the ever loving cheezewhiz is happening between my legs?
All I can figure, since this was a one time occurrence, was that the stress of the weekend tightened my body so as to not allow the flow to transpire normally. So instead of experiencing a normal menstruation, my body held onto all of it. ALL OF IT. Until such a time that I was relaxed and then it rained down oh holy terror.
Thank goodness whenever we have my step-son I travel with a zipper pouch of tissues and wet wipes, because I went through a whole package wiping myself and the bathroom up. Yes, I could have left my blood all over the place to horrify some poor shopper, but that didn’t feel right. So I scrubbed the floor, the toilet and the walls because at some point some got flung up on the side of the stall. It only makes sense since This. Is. My. Life.
Once I’d changed everything and cleaned up the space I texted my boyfriend who was probably wondering if I’d died or not by this point. Bless him, his first words were, “What do you need?” All I asked him for was time, because maybe, just maybe, I could wash the blood off my white shirt and avoid stains.
All in all, this was fifteen minutes of my crazy life I will relive now every time I think of going to visit family. At least I had a suitcase in the back of the car with clean clothes and zero reservations about a wardrobe change in the parking lot.
Moral of the story?
Pack wet wipes. Lots of them.
I remember it was only my second period, I was at a sleepover at my friends place when it started and it was overnight. I woke up and there was blood everywhere, all over the sheets, the mattress, when I jumped up in shock, all over me, the white carpet, some even landed on my friend. Everyone was still asleep, I hoped and tried to hide it all, but obviously I failed. I will never forget that as long as I live.
I’ve been there. Where you look up at the wall and think, “how the fucking hell did that get there?” Where no amount of cheap tp is going to clean up this Rosemary’s baby nightmare. Love your writing! Very funny