We all love free things. Food? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Stickers? Check. Parking or school tuition? Check to both if you can find them. But I’d like to add one more thing to the list that any girl can confirm with a loud “Yes!”: Free. Menstrual. Hygiene. Products. Imagine it. Free tampons and pads in public restrooms for moments when “I thought I had one more left!” or “Oh no! I left my bookbag outside!” leave you stranded in the stall. This was me the other day.
Unlike many of my girl friends, I am not on birth control or have an IUD or use some other form of contraceptive that limits or controls my menstrual flow. This is a personal choice of mine and I’m able to live with my period, health-wise. However, this means I have no set schedule for when Aunt Flow wants to stop by for a visit. The only warning I get is a vague few days of area-specific acne, bloating, moodiness, and that feeling that pain is about to get real down in there. Or the timing could be way off and it hits me a week later. My aunt can be sneaky and fickle sometimes.
So cue to me in an on-Grounds bathroom stall cursing myself for being stupid enough to leave my bookbag and stash of tampons fifty feet out of reach and rooms away when I knew my period may have started. But then I remembered something spectacular. Recently, the University of Virginia’s Office of Facilities Management agreed to install and stock machines that dispense free pads and tampons in select buildings’ women’s’ restrooms on Grounds. The whole story of this (temporary; read the article) miracle is lined out in this article [link to include: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2019/03/student-council-announces-continued-funding-for-free-menstrual-hygiene-pilot-program] written by Katja Cresanti of the Cavalier Daily, the University’s student-run college newspaper.
I had seen the machines before in some of the restrooms, and like the child I really am, I pressed the buttons. Just so I could revel in the fact that I could have a free tampon or pad if I needed one. Note: No tampons or pads were wasted or contaminated in my frolicking. They are dispensed in cardboard boxes or tubes in addition to their factory packaging. And they come in only one absorbency, regular. On that day, I was playing around. Now, I was actually in need. In all of my twenty-two years, I have never been more excited for a free thing or to press a button. I promptly left my stall and went out and pressed that glorious button to get one. I felt like a kid in a candy shop (if that’s not too weird of an association here in the bathroom).
But that’s what gets me. You go to a candy store to treat yo’ self. So why does getting free menstrual products feel like a luxury? There are many arguments and discussions going on about just this. I’m not looking to get into them right here, though. Right now, I am just incredibly grateful that UVa has finally acknowledged–and done something about!–the need for free menstrual products for any person who finds themselves stranded in the stall like me.