Confessions of a sanitary pad buying husband
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Holding up an empty pack of sanitary pads she says, “Would you mind getting these for me?”
Regardless of how many times I’ve done it before, these words always jangle my bones.
Once at the store, I always seem to have to take a deep breath when I’m at the mouth of the feminine product aisle, right before I brave the lane of multicoloured packaging. Because you never ever see men in the aisle, I always get a feeling that I’m breaching a section of the store exlusive to women, like I’m a perv sneaking into the women’s restroom. I’ve always felt that to make the pad aisle less daunting, stores should encourage an intermingle of the sexes by throwing in some products that guys would buy as well. They could maybe zebra the items out in this fashion: pads, motor oil, tampons, WD40, panty liners, charcoal.
Because of the insane variety of female sanitary products out there, locating the right item is like trying to find an M&M in a silo of Skittles. And I always end up spending lots more time in pad alley than the women, who by instinct have the keen eye to just home in on what they are looking for and make off with it, almost like an eagle snatching fish out of the water.
Paying for the product is a whole other ordeal. As I wait at the cash register for my turn, I always feel that people are looking. That their eyes shift from the pads, and then on to me, to the pads, and back to me. And checkout always feels twice as long.
And nightmare of nightmares is when you return home and she tells you that you’ve got the wrong kind, and if you would be a darling and return to the store to swap it for the right one.
