Gross Post on Menstrual Misadventures

You have been warned. This is gonna get graphic.

Last night I went on a date. It was the first date I have been on since April 2003 and so I was nervous. I was also nervous because, while I genuinely like this guy, I don't really feel those sort of jittery I'm-going-to-fall-in-love emotions about him. I feel kind of guilty for going out on a date with him, if you want the actual and literal truth. He's really nice & we had a good time. However. I was nervous, also slightly hungover because I had gone out & drunk a bunch of beer the night before, being as I was so nervous and all, and then I got my period, so I was crampy and cranky too. A charming concatenation of circumstances, really. Leading to me being at my best as you can well imagine.

We went to Carrabbas, which is a chain Italian restaurant; it was actually pretty good. After we had a drink & an appetizer, I went to the ladies room. It was almost too late. I looked down at the floor in the ladies' room and there were four quarter sized puddles of blood. Oh yeah! So I started cleaning myself up, hoping against hope that my long walk to the ladies' room had not been marked by a bloody trail. Toilet paper is completely inadequate for this task, because it just gets all scrumply and then turns into little beads. Before the bead stage it smears the blood around, making the whole thing worse. It was beyond gross - the stall soon began to look like I had slaughtered a goat or something. Which, you know, is the sort of thing that can happen at any time in the ladies room at Carrabbas, where they feature an endless tape of Italian to British language lesson. I don't think I'll ever need to say "I'll have those trousers!" in Italian. At least I hope not - but if I do, I know how now. Although new trousers would have been handy, if difficult to explain, last night. I was wearing a black sundress, thank god, since I almost wore a white one. There was blood on my legs and probably on the back of the dress, but fortunately I don't think it was visible.

You'd think that by my age I'd be immune to menstrual mishaps like these, but alas they get even worse as you get older. Gah. I walked back to the table watching the floor all the way: it was miraculously clean and nobody pointed at me and shouted, "There she is! The bleeder!" The rest of the evening was uneventful, more or less. Just as long as I didn't bleed in his car - now that would be gross, and I'm sure, since he's a gentleman, he would never mention it. Although he'd be squicked out about me forevermore.