Tampax knows me too well.

I say this because the other day I was in Target, and I was all, Tampax or Kotex? Because even though I prefer Kotex, there’s this whole thing about how I’m opposed to neon tampons and what they represent. Menstruation isn’t a rave, Kotex. Pull your head out of your ass.

So I was standing there, trying to decide which was more important–my comfort or my self-respect–when out of the corner of my eye I saw this glittery pink box. And this pink box, with its glitter and its pinkitude, I swear, was whispering to me.

“Buy me,” it said. “Buy me and life will forever be like the time you mixed Red Bull and cotton candy and vodka together and drank it through a Twizzler.”

By the time I got to the express lane, I was already regretting my decision. And not because hearing boxes of tampons talking to you is code for, “Bitch be cray-cray,” either, though I guess that should have entered my mind at some point before now. But let’s just say there’s a reason I don’t change up my routine. The last thing I need on top of all the other crap that’s been going on lately is to light my vagina on fire.

Again.

Anyway. So I’m at the express lane, and this kind older woman is taking it upon herself to comment on every single item I have. Box of corn flakes? She liked them better when there was a rooster on the front. Bottle of water? I’m just paying for tap, you know. Ginger tea? Who’s ever heard of such a thing?

And then she gets to the tampons. The sparkly pink box of tampons.

“Hey, Carol,” she calls over to the girl working the other express lane. “You ever seen anything like this?”

Carol walks over and shakes her head. “Nope. What is it?”

The two of them turn the box over, trying to figure it out, and for a moment I’m thinking this is reminiscent of some sort of horror movie, that at any moment they’re going to figure out how to work the box and unleash hell on earth. And then I remember that it’s the third day of my period and already the hot flashes are so bad I’m adding ice to my bath water, so hell? IT’S IN MY PANTS.

A few minutes and two more associates later, they figure out what’s in the box–WHAT’S IN THE BOOOOOX! WHAT’S IN THE BOOOOOOX!–and she hurriedly rings up the tampons and double-bags them.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you with…that.”

“Not at all,” I tell her. “The seven candy bars and rotisserie chicken, on the other hand….”