The Tampon Story

I have a story to tell you....

When I was 15 I took driver's ed through a place other than my high school. You can get all the book work and driving done at home with your parents. At the very end you spend two 8 hour days driving with three other kids you've never met. Well worth it to be finished in two days!

I packed up my stuff and went to stay with my grandparents in Salt Lake during my 2 day drive-a-thon. I took my stylin mini backpack. You remember those, don't act like they weren't cool then.  I stuffed it with tampons. STUFFED IT. I didn't want to be left with an emergency or embarrassing situation so I was prepared as could be.

Day 1 of drive-a-thon. The people in the car that I got to spend the next 8 hours with included quiet emo girl, chubby smelly kid that packed a lot of cheese flavored treats, boy who never took his headphones off except when it was his turn to drive (he was a terrible driver. I thought I was going to die before we even reached the freeway entrance), and my Japanese instructor. His accent was so strong I couldn't usually understand what he was saying, but he was very nice. The awkward silence in the car was too much for him to handle. Every 15 minutes or so he would try to strike up a lively conversation with everyone. This always failed, resulting in an even more awkward silence than the original.

As I was thinking about how I was going to barf from the smell of cheezits if we didn't stop soon, Mr. Instructor announced we needed to get gas. I don't think the car was really out of gas, but we all needed a break. Everyone got out for a minute or two, but they were back in the car by the time me and my mini backpack came prancing out of the bathroom. As I neared the car, I held onto the strap of my backpack and spun it around like a laso or something. I guess it was my pent up energy that drove me to spin my backpack like a cowboy.

The next few seconds seemed to happen in slow motion. I wound my arm up, the backpack began it's rotation, and like a machine gun, tampons came shooting out of it. Maybe a firework is a better description because they went in every direction. I don't think anyone knew it was possible to cram that many tampons into one tiny backpack. It was like clowns exiting a Mr. Bean car at the circus. Apparently I didn't zip it up.

I stood in shock for a second or two trying to figure out my next move. If the people in the car hadn't noticed, I could get in and pretend nothing happened. As I turned my gaze toward the car, Mr Miyagi was jumping out to assist me. Normally picking up spilled tampons would be a job one person could handle on their own, but this particular day was windy, very windy.

As the wind blown tampons rolled across the parking lot, my instructor chased after them shouting, "I help you Jamie! Don't worry! I get them!" At first I tried to tell him it was ok, it didn't matter, just leave them, please just leave them. I realized it didn't matter what I said, he was going to chase down every last one and bring them back to me.

After the runaway tampons were all safely back inside mini-pack, I slowly got back into the car. I don't think the driving instructor even knew what had happened. He had no idea that what had just occurred would go down as one of my all time embarrassing moments.