Today’s Oversharer is one of my most favoritest people in the whole world. Or at least here on the Interwebs. Contributor to the momthology I Just Want to Pee Alone, creator and writer of Cloudy, With a Chance of Wine, and my go-to gal when I have questions about blogging, Dani Ryan is as sweet as she is talented. She also misplaces tampons.Which is entertaining for the rest of us.
It was the summer of 1998.
I was 21-years-old.
I was halfway through my college degree.
And I couldn’t find the string to my tampon.
Now, I’m sure I’m not the first woman who’s gone through this, and I definitely won’t be the last, but I’d like to bet very few lost tampons materialize into the craziness that I’m about to describe to you.
First of all, I have to clarify something: the tampon went missing on its own without any prompting from the outside world, if you know what I mean.
Yup.
It just kind of crawled up there by itself.
And since my mother had gone to great lengths to scare me out of using tampons because of the whole risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome, I freaked. the frak. out.
What if I died?
Luckily, I’m a pretty resourceful person, and I remembered there’s a toll free number on that little insert that comes with every box of Tampax, so I brought the phone into the bathroom with me and spent far too much time talking about my vagina with a complete stranger.
Tampon Lady: Are you able to feel the string with your fingers?
Me: No.
Tampon Lady: Have you tried using 2 fingers?
Me: Yes.
Tampon Lady: Is there anyone else there who can assist you?
Me: No.
Tampon Lady: Okay, I’m going to ask you to try one more thing. Sit in a tub of warm water and try to relax your body for a while, and then tense your muscles like you’re having a bowel movement. That might work.
Me: And if it doesn’t?
Tampon Lady: Then I suggest you visit your doctor as soon as possible.
Two unsuccessful hours, 3 baths, and a lot of self-loathing later, I came to 2 horrible realizations:
1. I was never going to be able to pass that tampon
2. Childbirth was going to suck for me
Reluctantly, I called my doctor’s office and convinced the receptionist to squeeze me in that afternoon.
And do you know what happened when I was in the office with my legs in the stirrups?
The doctor told me he couldn’t find a tampon either.
And then I remembered: my period had stopped earlier that day.
Oooops.
But all was not lost.
I was right about one thing.
Childbirth did suck for me.
Have you ever lost a tampon?
Hahaha oh bless you, how embarrassing 🙂 That’s set me up in a good mood for the day 🙂
It was pretty embarrassing!!!!
I’m so glad I got your morning started with a smile. 🙂
Sadly, I’ve been there, too!
Thanks for having me here today, Steph! I’m so excited!
Dani, so sounds like something I would do. Actually about a month ago, I forgot I had one in and actually inserted another. Thankfully it took me about 30 seconds to realize, but when I did, I thought to myself how forgetful could I be. But after reading this, I now know we were truly destined to me be friends if nothing else!! 🙂
OMG, I’ve never done 2 at once!!! That would’ve freaked me out! Glad you were able to “save” the 1st one without a trip to the doctor! 🙂
OIMG OMG OMG OMG…that is just too funny…I did the same exact thing as Janine…I thought I was loisign my mind…so I had to text my bff and share…supposedly it’s not a rare occurrence.
I feel like I’m losing my mind most days, so I guess it’s only a matter of time before I do this myself!!!
OH, NO! that’s hysterical! glad you were able to have a laugh about it (and then shared it with us).
OMG, I was MORTIFIED at the time!!! But it ended up making some pretty good blog fodder. HA!
That sounds like something I would do… But it could never happen to me, my body rejects tampons. Stick one in and out it comes faster than a bullet out of the barrel of a gun (before and after kids)
REALLY?! You poor thing. I can’t imagine not being able to use tampons.
Now I just want to give you a hug… 🙁
You know, I thought *I* had a lot of crazy, whacked out, messed up experiences in my life but I’m starting to think that you might have a leg up on me in that department!! 😉
When I was first dating my husband, one of my co-workers asked if he knew how big of a nightmare I was. I remember thinking, “what do you mean?!”…but then I realized he had a point. 😉
*flatline* revives…reads “The doctor told me he couldn’t find a tampon either.
And then I remembered: my period had stopped earlier that day.” *flatlines*
Dani: This has happened to me far too many times. I’m convinced that when I’m on my period I also get ADD or something. I am no longer ashamed.
Stephanie: I know I’ve said this before but thank you for bringing your Crazy into my life because I have indeed found my tribe! This series is freaking hilarious.
I’m so glad this happens to other people!!
And YES, thank you for bringing so much laughter into our lives, Steph!!!
Oh, yay!!!! I love that you love the series! Feel free to contribute to it, Vernette. *nudges you*
And gals like Dani make it that much more fun!!
Love you ladies! xo
So… did you ever find the tampon?
There was never a tampon to begin with!! 🙁
Oh no! I would have been so embarrassed. I’ve done that before too, luckily I realized before freaking out that I had already taken it out. Great post.. New follower
I need to start setting some sort of reminder or something. 🙂
And I’m so pleased to have a new follower!!!
Maybe you could be like the Queen…have a little flag in the bathroom that goes up when you put the first one in at the beginning of the week and down when you take the last one out. If the flag is down, the tampon is not in residence. LOL
Ha ha! Totally not the way I thought this story would end!!! I bet you were the talk of that doctor’s office for a few days!!
Bahahahaha! Yup, I probably was!!! 😉
I may or may not have lost one due to some “prompting”. It is a big long story that ended with it coming out after a long time of not knowing it was in there and some antibiotics for my beav. The tampon incident is the reason that my husband and I do not have drunk sex to this day…
BAHAHAHAHA! OMG, that’s hysterical. Well, probably not for you. I had a friend who had to have one removed from the doctor (and she actually had one in there) and it was a pretty horrible experience for her, too. 🙁
Holy Shit was that funny! I remember taking my daughter to the doctor when she was maybe 2 – she had Rotovirus, bad. As we were sitting there talking about what was going on with her she let loose her stinky liquid bowels. OMG I almost hurled right in the office. I apologized to him, and then he told me the grossest story ever (which of course I will now share) – “That’s nothing compared to what happened this morning. I had a new patient that was complaining of internal pain and a smell she couldn’t identify. She tried everything but the smell wouldn’t go away. I had her lay back and did a full exam gyno exam and removed a tampon that had been there for at least a week. – The smell was so bad I gagged and we had to spray the whole office down with lysol.”
So there ya go, it can always be worse. And it was confirmed my daughter had Rotovirus, but this time it was caught before she spent 3 days in the Ped’s ward like the last time she had it, so that was something.
OMG!!! A friend of mine had a tampon removed by a doctor, and she said the smell was HORRIBLE. Like, the whole ER smelled. I thought she was exaggerating. Apparently, she wasn’t!!!!
Oh my gosh, Dani, that was hilarious! I don’t even want to admit it, but I’ve done the same thing. Like, oops, wait, there was never one up there today!
Now, I don’t want to get too personal, but this IS oversharing…am I remembering that you also once got a condom stuck up there, too? I’m almost positive I read that on your blog…if not, just ignore me and delete this comment! (I almost typed “delete this condom.”) Haha
Shay!!! YES, it WAS me who also got a condom stuck up there. What can I say? My vagina and I have the worst luck EVER! 😉
I. Am. Dying.
I just remembered that I left that comment asking you that the other day, and I had to come back here and see if you’d answered. I THOUGHT that was you!! A woman after my own skanky heart…
Haaaaa!! So good. I once had the opposite problem. What’s the opposite of not being able to find the string? Finding two strings. I’ll leave it at that for now.
Bahahahahahaha! That must’ve been interesting!!!!!
Oh my gosh I’m totally dying! I’m sitting in a move theater waiting for my nap, I mean the movie, to start and I totally just snorted popcorn. And I’m embarrassed to admit that the same thing has happened to me. But being the total whimp that I am I was to ashamed to call the number so I just panicked for about an hour and spelunked in my nether regions more often than any man ever would. Eventually it dawned in me that I never put a tampon in when I woke up that morning! We truly meant to be friends.
Hysterical as always, Dani!
Love that you make me laugh always!
Vicky
Hi, Vicky! So glad I made you laugh! And I love that you go to the movies in the afternoons to nap. 🙂 I’m convinced someone needs to develop an app so you can record whether-or-not you put a tampon in. HA!
Oh Dani I am so glad you shared this story. I think we’ve all been there with the tampons one time or another…
What I was wondering as I was reading the part about your call to the tampon helpline-Good lord, do people actually APPLY to these jobs??? And is there a hierarchy? Do you start out in pantiliner support and work your way up to tampon expert? I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, but you just may have given me a future blog post here…. You’ll get all the credit, if you want it… 😉
Bahahahaha! “Do you start out in pantiliner support and work your way up to the tampon expert?” <<– That is HILARIOUS!!!! And YES! Write that post. No need to give me any credit, my friend! xoxoxo
I wish you had a picture of that doctor’s face. You just KNOW he and his wife had a fun dinner conversation. “So honey, how was your day?” “Good. I removed an imaginary tampon…”
Makes menopause look appealing. 😀
RIGHT?! I can JUST imagine the conversation around that doctor’s dinner table after that episode. So embarrassing!
OMG! Somehow I just knew it was going to end like that.
How humiliating! Can you imagine the shit you’ll be forgetting when you’re older?! Like accidentally leaving the house right after taking your Ex-lax.
Yup. That will happen. Trust me. 🙂
LOL…thanks for sharing! I used to work in an OB/GYN office and one of the docs had to remove a forgotten tampon. Luckily he had done this so much that he perfected the extraction so the whole office didn’t reek.
More recently, not only did I forget to remove a tampon, I inserted another one so when I went to remove T2, magically, the first string followed. Luckily I haven’t tried that trick since… O.o
Jeez what 2 kids and lack of sleep will do for a mom!
Oh my word! It sounds like this happens WAY too often?!?!?!?!
I’ve never done the 2-tampons-at-once thing, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time… 😉
Dani! You went all the way to the doctor’s office to ask him to look in your hoo-ha for a NON-EXISTENT tampon? That’s hilarious! I’m gonna see if I can get an appointment with Ryan Gosling with the same excuse. “No, really, Ryan, I think it’s in there somewhere, just look a little more…”
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If only I knew about Ryan Gosling at the time. I would’ve totally asked him to look for me! 🙂
OMG that is SO MUCH WORSE than misplacing your sunglasses and running all over looking for them and then realizing you were never wearing sunglasses. So. Much. worse.
Not only have I done the double tampon, I also was in the bathroom once and there was a horrid smell and then a tampon FELL OUT. I have NO IDEA how long it had been in there! So awful. It is a wonder I haven’t misplaced my kids by now if I don’t even remember putting stuff up my vagina. And that just sounds horrible….
OMG! Why do you put so much stuff in your vagina?! IBahahahahaha! 🙂
I once lost not one, but two. Nothing worse than having to call your doctor and say, “I lost two tampons up my vagenius?” Nothing worse.
xo
Meredith
STOP IT!!!!!! TWO?! That’s priceless! PLEASE blog about it!
Oh Dani, I laughed till I cried with this one. I too have lost tampons. One I apparently completely forgot I had in there and had to go to the gyn thinking I had some dread disease only to have the doc pull out a tampon and “cure” me. And the last time was just a few months ago when I was certain I’d put in a tampon and couldn’t find it. I raced to my doctor who did a thorough exam and couldn’t find it either, which of course means I’d never put one in. Duh! Great story. So glad you “overshared!”
I’m SO GLAD someone else has this problem, and it’s nice to hear you’ve had this happen multiple times. Makes me feel a little less like I’m losing my mind. HA!!!
SHUT. UP. I totally didn’t see that ending coming. And as usual, you are a most riveting storyteller! I loved that- this is one of my favorite guest post series because it so often brings two of my favorite bloggers together! Like today! Chance Of Wine+ Crazy Exhaustion= Perfection! Great job, ladies! 🙂
Thanks, Stephanie! I’m so glad I made you laugh! And I promise you this: I had no idea it was going to end that way, either. Good lawd, I was so embarrassed!
I’ve never ‘lost one’ but I did find an EXTRA up in my lady purse once. How that got there? No clue? But I think wine was involved.
In your “lady purse”?! OMG!!! I’ve never heard of that one before. I love it! And I’m totally using it!
LMAO! How embarrassing!! Very funny though! I bet the people on the end of the ‘Tampon Help Line’ have some crazy stories to tell!
I haven’t lost a tampon, but I did put 2 in as someone did above, only I didn’t find out until I pulled on the string and they both came out at once… It confused the hell out of me.
Ah, a happy Friday discussing tampons 😉
I am dying! I can’t believe you actually CALLED the hotline. This is too great and just makes me love you more. And love Steph more because she hosts this too-fun series. xo to both of you!
O.M.G. Love her!!!!!
So I felt all that shame for nothing? Because it happens to other women too???? OMG! And I never thought about calling the hotline. Holy crap.
Put me on the Lost the Tampon list with medical intervention. It was up there alright and then I had to explain why I cut the string so short. And I know you want to know too. It was because I was working as a stripper at the time. The doc said maybe he’d check the place I worked at out sometime. Thankfully he never did. BTW, the string glows like the dickens in the black light.
You had me at stripper, lady.
🙂
Haha! Too funny! That has to be one of your most embarrasing moments…??? I can’t imagine sitting there with my legs spread of the gyno and then say, “Oh, just kidding. I didn’t actually put one in. I just remembered!” haha. hilarious!!!
I am so glad that I’m not the only one who’s ever lost a tampon. Of course mine was found the next time that the red devil came to visit. I imagine that outside intervention just kept pushing it around. I didn’t even know that it had been lost! No weird odors while it was in, but gag me with sweaty socks gross when it came out!
Bahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
Sooo funny!! I’ve definitely lost a tampon a time or two before!! By the second time, I was not ashamed to call the boyfriend in there to help out. (I have small hands) Safe to say, it was not an experience either of us enjoyed or that we are no longer together! 🙂 I think he was traumatized afterwards. Atleast he waited a few months before he dumped me!!
BWAH HA HA HA!!! I am dying! You definitely gave that doctor the story of his career!! Awesome!-Ashley
I can only imagine your embarrassment at the docs office. Speaking as a nurse, I have seen more things stuck in va-who-has than I care to admit. If it weren’t for HIPPA, I could fill up a book with vag toy experiences. Hopefully, that helps lessen your pain! lol
Stacey, I would NOT want your job!!!