I remembered an episode from my teens and felt the need to write it for posterity here.
My mom told me she was going to the store and needed me to come help. I'm not much of a shopper and never have been, but I am into bonding time with my mom, so I went. We got to K-Mart and I saw she had arranged to meet her best friend there too.
They each grabbed a cart, and had me grab one too. I said, "What are we buying that we need 3 carts?" My mom said, "It's a great sale, hurry!" I had trouble keeping up.
I got my first trickle of alarm when my mom had to stop and ask a guy who worked there where the feminine hygiene aisle was located. He pointed the way and our train of carts was off again.
When we got to the aisle there was a huge display of Stayfree Maxi Pads, buy one get one free. My mom and her friend started loading up their carts with as many boxes as they could. These were no small boxes. This was before the advent of Ultra Thin Maxis. I stood transfixed and horrified as the ramifactions hit me of wheeling carts full of these boxes through the store on a busy Saturday. Mom shook me out of my horror by snapping at me to hurry, fill my cart!
I don't remember filling the cart. It was probably so traumatic that I've repressed the memory. Too soon we were on our way, only they had stacked the carts so full that we couldn't see past the boxes to navigate through the store. When the checker saw us coming, he (of course it was a HE!) called for more checkers and he couldn't help his look of shock. Hell, neither could I.
Even worse, after he'd been scanning the boxes for what must have been 10 minutes, Mom felt the need to say something to the effect of what a great sale this was, especially for us, since we had 4 women in the house who used Stayfree. All at the same time, chuckle chuckle. Of course it never occurred to her to say something less embarrassing, like she was shopping for the women's prison, or that she worked for Stayfree and that a recall had happened and she was instructed to buy every box from every shelf in town.
I wished I could spontaneously combust right then and there, and hoped that my burning face was an indication that it was about to happen, but NO.
Wheeling my Leaning Tower of Maxi out to the car was the most embarrassing thing I've ever done. I had to keep one hand on the top of the stack to keep it from tumbling all over the parking lot. It took us forever to load them, and you could see the boxes and boxes through the windows. But the horror didn't end there. We lived on one of the busiest streets in town! Imagine driving by and seeing us unloading those boxes in a big line of kids from the car to the garage. We had a tall shelf unit in the garage, and it was full to the MAX (I know, puns are perfect in a story like this) for years.
You'd be proud of the inventive ways I kept friends from ever, EVER, seeing that garage.
16 comments:
oh.my.god. THAT is classic, you poor thing! My co-workers are wondering what I'm laughing at right now, thanks a lot! :) Now go get yourself some chocolate, you deserve it right now!
Yep. Chocolate helps with bloating, right? I thought so....
You Win! That is the most embarassing teen years story I have ever heard.
I'm completely blushing for you. I would still be traumatized!
That's hilarious. Thanks for posting it.
I think it's hilarious that YOU own the victimization to this story! What about the LONE BOY who had to live with 4 women that needed that many maxi's ON THE SAME WEEK EVERY MONTH!!! How about a little sympathy this way for the saint that I am! Ha Ha!
On a more serious note. Did you hear that the "friend" that met you at the store is terminally ill with cancer. She & Mom were laughing about this same story just a few days ago. I guess that it's good to have memories like these when a laugh really is the best medicine. I'm glad you shared your laugh with the world. I think you're the best!
So what's so unusual about that? I buy every roll of Charmin Plus whenever I go to WalMart, because it is rarely stocked and is the absolute best toilet paper on the planet. This embarrassed my wife, but I don't care. I need my lotion-laced TP.
Eric, you were a paragon of saintly patience, one week every month. I'd give you my condolences except that all you had to put up with were bitchy women one week of the month (and only when you were near us) until you had the presence of mind to move out. We, however, have to put up with internal raging mood swings, cramps, headaches, bloating, sore boobs, zits, cravings of chocolate that make us irrational, and the joy of being prepared and dealing with periods on a monthly basis. Hardly fair. Our only reprieve is pregnancy, which is ten times worse, or major surgery to remove said organs causing all our misery. Then when we get old, we get to endure menopause and hot flashes. I'd say your minor discomfort of being around 4 women was nothing compared with our lifetime of going through this shit. I love you, though. :)
Bishop, I'm loving the image of you laboring to push a cart full of Charmin through the store. I'm reminded of those commercials of the kid stuffing his sweats with Charmin so he can play football pain-free.
Eric, I did hear about Mom's friend. That sucks so bad. She has a life I don't envy...
Just caught up... UGH. That's the only thing I can come up with.
I do think that tops every embarassing teen pad story.
Hey, SML, if you get a craving for chocolate, maybe that's the key to your migraines?
Have you indulged the craving when it hits? Maybe look for the kind with the least amount of sugar (which will make the headache worse, most likely) and saturate fat, like a good dark chocolate?
Don't know, just trying to help. I hate to hear someone suffering from migraines so regularly. Having dealt with that for years (although not under the same circumstances of course), I really empathize. Migraines suck major ass (kinda like blogger today, which keeps flaking out on me).
Hey Matt, your concern is touching. It's not often I find someone who suffers or suffered from migraines the same as I do. It makes me know that your concern is truly heartfelt. I wouldn't wish migraines on my worst enemy! I hear from some people that they get a (regular) headache maybe once a year, and I secretly despise them for their luck.
I'm not often a chocolate eater, and I know it doesn't trigger the migraines. While I may crave it at this time (or sugar in general), I don't really eat a lot of chocolate during this time. It seems like it doesn't matter what I eat or not...I get a 5 day headache starting on day 3 of my period, and it sucks the double big one. That's all I know for sure. I should log my eating when I have this and that may clue me in...
:) If nothing else, at least I know that this headache will likely end tomorrow, so I have a little light at the end of the tunnel. Sigh.
I was laughing so hard when I read this that my husband asked me 3 times what was so funny. Ummm...I didn't want to get into the explanation...
OMFG! the f'n genious. the genious of your mother.
my Leaning Tower of Maxi
Classic.
You know, I think this story serves as a wonderful, heart-felt emotional moral: don't ever, ever, go anywhere with your mother again.
10 blog points for you,
- Krom
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