You’re bloody in bed. The red fluid, once flowing thick and hot, is now crusted brown. You don’t want to move because you don’t know what sort of scarlet trail you will leave behind. You grab your stomach, assuming the blood is flooding out of the knot in your abdomen. The blood is terrifying. But the scariest part is when it happens on a school day. Half of us have been here. The other half can imagine it. None of us know how to approach it. So, lucky for you, I have composed a template.
Continue reading for a comprehensive guide to navigating school-day menstruation. Read the manual at your own risk: dirty descriptions dripping in immodest words. If you’re anything like me, your day usually commences with a wet wake-up and biting ache in the belly. Preparation involves rigorous effort. You get out of bed differently, popping out to minimize contact with your white sheets. Your closet is limited. Your white jeans are too white, your leggings squeeze your thighs too tight, and your skirts welcome too much breeze. Your bathroom routine doubles because bleeding takes time to clean. Coverup takes time to be clumpy and cakey and subsequently taken off. Packing UltraThin pads and Barely-There tampons take up more space than their advertisements let on. Swim practice has to be considered. You will not be one-piecing with the threat of a string escaping. You have to email your coach about practice. Lies take time to create.
Pack ammunition, preferably in the form of Advil, Godiva, and Tampax Pearl Active. Forewarning: despite what Tampax commercials suggest, your teammates will not carry you off the turf chanting your name, nor will Olympic gymnastics glory be granted. The commercials promise a mirage of dreams. Yet the product accomplishes only its basic promise. Comfort. Hold it tight, because that capsule of condensed cotton will be the only source of solace in the school-day period.
You will inevitably be presented with the in-class rendezvous to the loo. First off, you can avoid changing your tampon during class times with some preparation. The Tampax box suggests the six-hours limit, but the school day can be longer. Learn your breaks. There is snack, lunch, and a slim ten minutes before sports practice. Get good at managing your time, hunger, and clothing changes. And if you fail, I will teach you how to conceal the concentrated cotton (that you will soon stick up your vagina) from your classmates. Unfortunately, your Aunt Flo does not visit only during your free periods.
Step one. Locate a discrete pouch, small enough to escape eyesight, and big enough to fit Ticonderogas. Avoid sparkles and monograms. Toss the pouch out at the beginning of class, next to your loose-leaf and beaten-up books. Remember: you run the risk of Nancy, to your left, asking to borrow a pencil, from your pencil-less case. Thus, it is vital to scope out the student with the front-row ticket to the teacher and enough stationery supplies to donate to the Thanksgiving drive. Make it obvious to the teacher that you did the homework. Raise your hand high and firm, catching your teacher’s eye at the precise moment she looks up to call the next voice. Participate a few times. Stun the classroom with your reading comprehension. Your goal, of course, is to leave the teacher no grounds upon which to deny you deserve a bathroom break.
Step two. Drop your pen into the black hole of your backpack. While pretending to rummage for a pen, unzip the small pouch in silence. Slip one of the skinny cylinders under your long sleeve shirt, in your front jean pocket, under your Tee, in your high sock, inside your coat pocket, under your belt, or beneath your bra. (Some locations require more skill than others, but with time and technique, you too can become a master.) At the moment of concealment, the tiny tube of cotton will appear bizarrely huge. Remind yourself your eyes wear a thin coating of fear, obstructing normal vision.
Step three. Throw up your hand and decrescendo your voice while asking to use the restroom. Pull the chair from underneath you, avoid the squeaking of the legs against the plastic floor. Repress your facial expressions. Picture a field of green with dewy droplets or a lake with fresh mist twirling on the surface. Avoid picturing your nightmare scenario: the cylinder spilling out and rolling around the floor with sanitary pads billowing in the air like feathers. Stroll to the bathroom with a limp caused by your clutching.
Step four. Head into the blue-doored stall. Tear off the wrapper and stick it into the box of silver “untouchables” hanging on the toilet stall wall. Close the delicate box gently. Slide a slimy, smelly thing out and replace it with a pristine and tender thing. Sacrifice it into a river of blood. Drip yellow rain into the pink water of the toilet bowl. Wash your sticky fingers with disinfectant bubbles. Do not take enough time to let people make assumptions. Look around your surroundings, and make sure you LNT. (Leave no trace.)
Step five. Slip back into your seat in the classroom and let your heart rate slow. Copy the words on the chalkboard into your unfolded notebook. Synchronize your nodding with the bobble-headed class. Wait a few minutes until the teacher hypnotizes the room. Take advantage of the glazed eyes and furrowed brows of your classmates. Throw the small pouch into your backpack. Feel proud and accomplished. No one noticed anything at all. Annotate the margin of your notebook until the ink devours the white pages. Mark what must happen six hours from now.
I must admit that my guide is unoriginal. Girls everyday perform some iteration of this routine. Many have undoubtedly taken such measures in the time it just took you to read steps one through five. For most of my life I followed them devoutly. I have strategized bathroom breaks, buried tampons in pouches, softened the tear of plastic wrapper, and reveled after thorough concealment. I learned these steps. I mimicked my older sisters, studied my mother, followed my friends, and discovered the unspoken rules of my teachers. We follow them dutifully because menstruation is still taboo. Because we don’t want to repulse our peers or discomfort our male teachers. Because we are ashamed. We do more than these initial five steps. We ask nurses for medical slips, avoid pastel clothing, sizzle by the sun at pool parties insisting we don’t want to dive into the cool water, pop advil like jolly ranchers, and hide our crippling cramps. We’ve mastered this performance in order to shield friends from disgust. But for what?
I offer you an updated manual. Do not skip lunch to change your tampon in a lonely stall. Dump the pouch and lighten your back’s load. Untuck the hidden tampon from your long-sleeve. Stop asking the nurse for notes to save your male teacher from thinking about “feminine issues.” Stop worrying about the girl in the stall next to you hearing the crinkle of your wrapper and the tap of the silver box. Stop whispering “period,” period. Stop hiding your tampon like a gun you used to kill someone. Your hands aren’t dirty, the blood is yours. Do not be ashamed to carry the very cylinder that stops over 1.2 billion women around the world from going to school. Your school day period nightmare is their unlivable fantasy.
Are you cringing yet? Has my manual disgusted you? Did I go too far from the very beginning, when I mentioned crusty, browning blood? Did you squirm when I said menstruation? I can’t help but wonder how many of my readers will strike the updated manual. Step one through five is not radical. It is familiar. But familiarity with injustice nurtures acceptance. Stop teaching your daughter embarrassment. Stop using hushed tones and euphemisms to ask your friends for a “thing.” I beg you, ditch the manual. Hold the damn tampon and walk to the bathroom. Stop being scared, for bloody sakes.