The bathroom at my workplace is located just off the lobby of our floor, which means that any visit requires a thirty second walk from my desk. I don’t mind, but occasionally, once a month in particular, that walk can be long and scary. Today was the realization of my worst nightmare.
Let’s be honest here. I’m female and of reproductive age, which means I have a monthly need for feminine products. Tampons, to be specific. [I hate that word, I hate writing that word, I hate saying that word…UGH.] Picking up my purse and walking to the little girl’s room would be an obvious announcement to my coworkers, so I’ve taken to subtly placing a single tampon into a sheaf of folded papers, scurrying to the bathroom, and leaving my colleagues none the wiser. It was an unpleasant moment the other day when a senior vice president and the chief operating officer briefly engaged me in conversation as I hurried by, but generally my disguise works well.
Until today, when I was twenty steps from the bathroom door and the tampon fell out of the papers. Panicked, I spun around and nearly ran into the head of the company IT department, a man I’ve only spoken to on several occasions. I don’t know if he was amused or horrified at the single, yellow-wrapped tampon lying on the floor between us, but he casually announced, “You dropped something.”
I grabbed the offending object up off the carpet and stuffed it back in my papers, at which point we started walking together, still in the direction of the bathrooms. He then asked how the interview I’d conducted that morning went (he’d overheard me mention it earlier in the day), and I explained that it went well and we’d made the candidate an offer. By the time I finished that sentence, we were standing by the door to the women’s room and I was torn. Do I walk in and let him spend the next two minutes knowing exactly what I’m doing (ew, mortifying), or do I keep walking and act like I was just taking my tampon out for a walk (pointless, obvious)?
In the end, I nonchalantly finished my sentence as the bathroom door swung shut behind me, and then died of humiliation next to the sink. The next time my work computer has a problem, I’m going to email in a request and flee the building for the day.
The worst part isn’t that he knows you were on your period, it’s that he knows that you transport your feminine supplies in a stack of papers when you’re on your period. He’ll be uncomfortable every time he sees you holding something fresh off the printer. I hope that makes you feel better.