Tampon Woman

Remember, if you don’t laugh, we can’t be friends. It's a HausFrau Rule.

So, one day last summer, quite by accident, I ended up crossing paths with some rather disturbing criminal evidence. And, darn if it wasn’t but a week later that I was officially summoned to the Military Police & Criminal Investigations Division to voluntarily hand over my fingerprints for their investigation as they searched for an international felon.

Uh, noooo. The felon was not me at least not this time. The goal was to rule out my fingerprints and put me in the free & clear. At least that was my goal, I’m not really sure about the official objective.

Let this be a lesson to you. Pay special attention to Kindergarten Rule #2:

Keep hands, feet and other objects to yourself.

Had I kept my hands to myself, I could have saved everyone time, money and grief. Especially the grief part, I could have really spared myself in that department.

Anyway, once the MP’s had my number, so to speak, they were all over me to give an official statement & submit my fingerprints for further analysis. Pronto! Like right now!

It turned out that pronto & right now meant that I would be making my official appearance with MiniMe in tow.

Yep, this is where my story makes an obvious turn from CSI-style drama to My Name is Earl-type of situational comedy.

Where was I? That’s right. At the MP Station bribing MiniMe to be good long enough for Mommy to talk to the very nice policeman & do a little fingerprint craft. That’s right, Sunshine. You be princess-perfect and I’ll give you a stick of Daddy’s gum when we are finished. Deal?

Of course it was a deal, Howie. Daddy’s gum is definitely worth being good for a mere half-hour.

And, all was good (in a calm before the storm kind of way) while I talked to the CID Investigator and gave the facts, just the facts, ma’am & signed my life away as I swore that I told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Incidentally, it was then that God sat back in amusement - afterall, He knew what was coming.

MiniMe and I then followed CID Invesitgator into the back room and this was where I sat down my purse, rolled up my sleeves and got down to business. With the stickiest ink known to mankind, I made an offering of my finger pad prints, karate chop prints, full-on palm prints, tip-top of the fingers prints, rolling full-finger prints. I was just about up to my elbows in the black goo when MiniMe piped up:

Hey, Mommy. What’s this?

Both CID Guy and I turned around. MiniMe had been exploring every nook and cranny of my purse (most likely searching for the gum) and this was actually a tampon. I didn’t get all honest and specific on her at this particular moment in time. Instead, I pulled the “do as I say” Mommy card and told her:

Put that back in my purse or no gum.

Hey, it’s not like I could have just put it back myself and rescued my purse from her clutches – remember, I was a little slimed with oil-based fingerprinting ink at this point.

CID Guy pretended he didn't know anything about this.

We adults directed our attention back to my hands while MiniMe continued on her purse expedition. CID Guy was all business ignoring the white elephant tampon in the room & I was wondering if MiniMe was done or was that just the opening act?

There God sat, smiling down on us.

And, 5 minutes later, that question was answered.

Hey, do you know us or what? Yep, that was just the warm-up routine.

CID Guy finished up with me and escorted us down the hall and to the loo so I could scrub up.

Here we all went marching down the hallway single file. Official CID Guy lead the way. Followed by me, inked up the wazoo & vowing never to touch anything ever again, ever. MiniMe was bringing up the rear. Hot pink Barbie back-pack swung over one shoulder, my purse over the other, carrying the pristinely wrapped tampon in a bridal bouquet manner.

It was all very Diana walking down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, in a totally parallel universe kind of way.

We made it to the one restroom at the MP Station. Being all modern & politically correct, the Army didn’t actually put up a sign calling it the Men’s room, but we all know that's what WC meant. CID Guy pointed me to a vat of Goop & then noticed that there are no paper towels around. He left to hunt down some Brawny, promising to return shortly.

The Men’s room was tiny, so I left the door open & MiniMe waited in the hallway while I scrub-a-dub-dubbed, vigorously washed and scraped off the ink. In the midst of all this frantic cleaning & with bubbles flying, CID Guy returned, but sans papertowels.

I turned around and was greeted with CID Guy offering me a roll of toilet paper. What?! And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I looked 6 inches to the right & 18 inches down and happened to notice that MiniMe had been very busy.

Right next to dude with the toilet paper, my little darling was standing there with her hot pink Barbie back pack swung over one shoulder & my purse over the other. In one hand she was holding both the tampon wrapper and the plastic applicator (yes, I'm a Playtex kind of gal). In the other hand, she was swinging the cotton stringy thing like a dead mouse puffy pendulum. I could see the excitement on her face. This was like the coolest thing ever to be discovered in the depths of my purse. Let’s face it, it was even better than Daddy’s gum.

It was about then that I suspect God did the whole belly laugh bit.

I gathered my composure, told CID Guy thankyouverymuch, wiped my hands on my jeans, threw the disassembled tampon into the Men’s room trashcan, grabbed MiniMe’s hand

And, quickly got the hell outta there. Vowing the whole way to my car that my hands were staying in my pockets forever & ever. Amen.

Once safe and sound in the Accord, I tossed the whole pack of gum MiniMe’s way and whipped out a pen and piece of paper. And started my commissary list:

• big box of disposable gloves
• tampons
• Trident
• teuquila