The Trouble with Feminine Hygiene Products

DISCLAIMER: The following post contains the word “douche.” If you’re offended by the innocuous name of a feminine product, you probably shouldn't read any further. I vacillated on whether or not to post this. And, now that I decided to press forward with it, I’m still not sure if it was the good or the evil side of my brain that won out. I mean, if I can't be real on my own blog, then why bother?

There they were, two kids I know fairly well (and probably you too – it shouldn't take much imagination) standing in the feminine products aisle of Walgreen’s giggling like a couple of school girls. Something they found was making them laugh uncontrollably.

What were they up to? They were taking pictures with their cell phones of a certain box on the shelf. Yep…you guessed right…it was a box of Summer’s Eve Douche.

Where did I go wrong?

Okay…I gotta come clean, as I’m convinced this was some sort of delayed lesson for me. God, in His own perfect timing, has His way of driving home these little lessons. You see, I had a kind of “experience” with this product when I was in the sixth grade.

Douche bag; it was the expression of the day. We used to say it on the playground in reference to the…well…dorkier among us. Yeah…I know it was wrong and I’m not proud of it. But that’s the way it was and I can’t change that. If you don’t like reality TV, you may want to tune out now. It gets worse.

Of course…I had no idea what “douche bag” REALLY meant. It was just the cool thing to say, so I said it.

Anyway, one beautiful spring day, my sixth grade teacher Mr. Porter was working on a lesson in class. He was a nice guy; a little on the effeminate side with a thick black beard and probably a little more touchy-feely with the kids than teachers are allowed to get nowadays. Everyone liked him. He never got mad and he’d reward certain students who had excelled each month with a trip to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. I got to go once. I think it was out of pity. It was that or he thought he could bring me back from the Dark Side with kindness and mercy. Silly man.

Alright, back to the story…

So, there’s Mr. Porter, holding up a poster board he’d put together with a montage of people’s pictures he’d cut from magazines. To this day, I don’t understand the lesson or the point he was trying to make. It may have had something to do with diversity, but I was too bored with it to really care. All I remember was him asking, “Okay, what do these people remind you of?”

There was a long silence. Nobody knew how to answer. What kind of question was that? Was there a right answer? Would someone be embarrassed by speaking up? Most of the kids looked away as though they weren’t listening. Maybe if they didn’t make eye contact, he wouldn’t call on them for an answer.

“They look like a bunch of douche bags to me!” someone yelled across the class.

There was a moment of deafening silence. You could’ve heard a pin drop. And then the class erupted in roaring laughter. All control was lost. Anarchy reared its ugly head.

Who said those words?

Oh…it was me.

Nice Mr. Porter…that wonderful man who never got angry…well, he was angry now. He was visibly glowing red right through that thick black beard as he yelled for the class to be quiet. Nobody was listening. Control was completely lost. It was pandemonium. And, the more he yelled and nobody listened, the madder he got.

Next thing I knew, he was literally dragging me by the arm to the principles office. Twin Creeks Elementary would never be the same sanctity of innocence again.

Mr. Porter tossed me in a chair outside the principle’s office while he barged right in. He slammed the door behind him. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, but there was a lot of yelling. I heard him say the F-bomb a couple of times followed by my name. It was an impressive display of vulgarity rivaled in intensity only by my own father. And you wonder where I got it.

I was suspended from school and my parents were told to explain to me what “douche bag” meant. I then had to write a report about it. My report was my ticket back into class two days later when they allowed me to return. I think I may have been the first kid suspended from Twin Creeks Elementary. And I came back to a hero’s welcome by my classmates.

And that’s my story. Oh…and I guess I’ll be having a serious conversation with a certain someone. Yeah, I get it, Lord. Lesson learned.