COLUMN: Ladies — keep men out of hygiene aisle
Let me apologize in advance for this column, but I have stayed silent about this subject long enough and it is time for me to finally bring it out into the open.
What is the deal with feminine hygiene products? I mean really, what other single category takes up an entire aisle at the grocery store. The arsenal of merchandise available to women along this subject is so numerous and diverse that it easily puts the selection of coffee at Starbucks restaurants to shame.
I would be a millionaire if could just get the backing to open my own feminine hygiene store based on the Starbucks style. Women would come in and walk up to the counter.
After perusing the wide sign behind me they would say, “Yes, I’d like an extra-long, light-days pad with wings, three overnight pads with flower prints and some tampons with easy glide applicator.”
Then I’d smile, wrap it all up in an environment-friendly package and send them on their pretty, premenstrual-cycle way; all of the time praying for the men in their life Copy Ed 9/15/02 what is this? now men are objects? Let’s put some dignity back in the paper and use whom? that will shortly be told to just “deal with it” because that’s the way things are. It’s not that I’m bitter. No, far from it.
I would never wish the things women have to go through on anyone. But I would like maybe an inch and a half or so in the bathroom cupboard for my shaving cream, razor and maybe even some Speed stick, in between the stacks of maxi pads, boxes of tampons, tubes of Monistat 7 and KY jelly.
A guy just wants to know he has a place in this world, but if I were him, I wouldn’t look for it in the bathroom. Some advise to women Copy Ed 9/15/02 All right at least we’re even, but let’s, for political correctness, use whom. that have not learned this painful lesson: Never send a man to the store to pick up some pads. I know it seems like a harmless venture, but really it’s like asking Woody Woodpecker to solve an algebraic formula.
My wife has tried a couple of times. The first time, I came home with nursing pads. I felt no real shame. I had found the right aisle and it did say pads on the box. The second time she gave me a name brand and told me not to get the big ones and found words like “overnights,” “flexi-wings” and “dri-weave.” I finally just chose the ones I could squeeze the best (I figured it worked with toilet paper) and headed home. The last time she sent me she wrote a note, pinned it to my shirt, and made me give it to a FEMALE employee. Needless to say, I lost my manhood, but got the right pads.
So what lesson is really to learn here?
Simply this, men do not know, want to know and couldn’t understand if they tried about the world of feminine hygiene. So don’t be too hard on your guy when you find him in the bathroom with your pads stuck on his shoulders and chest playing as if he is Maxi-Man from the 25th century; he’s really just a step above a big, dumb dog; which, by the way, explains why he’s man’s best friend.
Bryce Casselman’s column runs every other Monday. Comments can be sent to him at yanobi@hotmail.com