First off, this post has nothing to do with writing or anything except my sister-in-law sent me the funniest commercial! *Men and boys will not want to read this. Trust me. Stop here.
She sent it to me because I did something similar when I was young. Here's the story:
When I was in fourth grade, ( nine years old) I walked into my room one day and found a medium sized box sitting on my bed. It had a picture of a girl on a beach looking out into the vast ocean, all dreamy-like. Remember this? Anyone? I opened my new gift and found all these boxes with little packages of large sized band aides I assumed were to be used if you ever fell on your head and broke it in half. I was super curious, but I wasn't sure what to do with this new gift. Lucky for me my older--much older--sister was schooled in these things, so when she got home I asked her about it. Now you may be wondering why my mom didn't tell me, but that's the way it was at our house. The box was sitting there and I was left to read the pamphlet. Plus I was number three girl and number five child and I think she didn't want to have 'The talk' again or yet or something. So she gave the job to my sister, who was more than happy to tell me a very short, vague story about some long word called MENSTRUATION.
Apparently, my sister had "started" and my mom decided to get a 'two for one deal' and get me a box for the future. It sounded pretty cool and grown up. I couldn't wait till it was my turn, which I was sure was going to happen any day since I now had all those huge band-aids tucked under my bed. A few weeks later I went to the bathroom. (now we are getting personal, sorry.) I probably wiped a little too hard and there was a little bit of blood on the tissue. (sorry again, but what the heck.) So I told my sister, who squealed and screamed and called her friends, my other sister, my mom, my dad,(Seriously!) my brothers, (gross!) my best friend, my cousins, the old neighbor next door and anyone else she could think of. "Becky started her period!"
After my initial embarrassment wore off I went along with it, got all padded up, and waited for the magic to happen.
It didn't. Happen. At all. Now what was I supposed to do?
I waited some more. Still. nothing. What now? Tell them? No way! I didn't want to admit that it had been a false alarm. Everybody had seemed so excited and surprised, like I was probably the youngest girl to ever start her period, and I didn't want to relinquish that title as I rarely won anything.
And I kinda liked the attention. So I found a solution, because that's what I do.
I spied my sister's lipstick. It was a nice plum color. Just right, I decided, so I painted the pad with Cover Girl's continuous coverage in Passion Plum. My cousins offered me congratulations. My mom sighed, her little girl was all grown up. My sister was giddy. My stomach churned with guilt as I painstakingly covered my tracks just in case someone checked.
I played along for several days. Too long if you were the one using the passion plum on your lips-- unaware of its alternate function. Gross!
Eventually, I couldn't keep up, nor did I want to and the lie played out. I was in fourth grade. I didn't want to deal with that crap every month for the rest of my life. So I came clean and relinquished the title and the box back under my bed where it sat for several more years. And thankfully nobody threw me a 'new moon' party. Thank you Mom.
I should have bought my sister new lipstick, but, well, I was nine and funds were scarce. So sue me.
Maybe I should send her some new Passion Plum Cover Girl lipstick. What is the statute of limitations on a thing like this, anyway?
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