The Silent Red Ninja

Apparently a common complaint that men have about women is that when women are at the supermarket checkout, they always seem to wait until the last possible moment to start searching their handbags for their purse. It was as if the thought that they might have to pay some money never occurred to them. 

Well, I don’t know how accurate that is, but I certainly am that way when it comes to my period. Which has come pretty much Every. Single. Month. since I was 14. And yet, every single month it surprises me in some way or another, like a silent red ninja attacking at the most inconvenient moment (see “Remains of the Day & Night“). 

So you can imagine my delight the other week when I was getting ready to fly home from a weekend away at my friend Ay-Kay’s house and there was a knock on the door from the red ninja. I probably need not mention that I was wearing white underpants at the time, but I will mention it just the same, thank you very much. 

I swiftly got changed and stuffed the minutely-stained undies into my bag. As I continued on to pack the styrofoam sword I’d bought on a whim for Tiddles McGee, I had this sudden terrible thought that the sword would be picked by airport security and they’d have to search through my whole bag and some 19-year-old guard would end up holding my stained underpants up to the world as if it was the morning after my wedding night in a small Greek village.

And so I decided to give the undies a quick spot-clean in the bathroom sink. Of course, that little stain soon spread to a slightly larger stain and quickly resulted in a completely sopping pair of underpants. Result. 

Since I was alone in Ay-Kay’s house, I went snooping about to find a drying solution. A quick search of the laundry and bathroom unturned neither clothes dryer nor hair dryer. I considered for a minute using the microwave but I grew worried that my friend Ay-Kay would arrive home unexpectedly and I’d be all “Oh, hi!” and then the microwave would go “Bing!” and she’d say “What are you cooking?” and I’d be, like, “Nothing…” and she’d be all “That’s weird. Why would the microwave go bing! like that?” and she’d open the door to find my steaming hot underpants on one of her grandmother’s dinner plates.

And so I stuffed them into a plastic bag and back into my carry-on bag, now with the fear that airport security would uncover them, still sopping wet and I’d have to explain the whole situation. And I realised that A) a tiny blood stain was far better than a sodden pair of underpants and B) I should have just coloured the original stain in with a blue texta because apparently menstrual blood is okay when it’s blue. Anyone in advertising could have told me that.  

For the record, my friend Ay-Kay doesn’t actually own a microwave, the sword got through airport security and the underpants languished at the bottom of the bag for far longer than was necessary and ended up being thrown in the bin, where I should have just placed them the minute I bought them as part of a multi-coloured five-pack from Best & Less. I mean, who the hell even wears white underpants ANYWAY when that dreaded red ninja could arrive at Any Given Moment. Sheesh.

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