Briar Moon

mood.

Facebook’s list of “suggested friends” is quite literally a list of people I’ve been avoiding my entire life.

if you threw a pad or tampon into a crowd of boys they would probably all scream and it would be like that scene from monsters inc where george gets contaminated by a sock

story time

ok so in high school on away game days, the football players and cheerleaders would have to share busses because our school was broke as fuck so our cheer bus would always have a group of varsity footballerers in the back of it. one day my genius friend and I were discussing our feminist rage when she said “bridget you should totally throw a tampon back there and see what they do” and me being myself, stood up and hurled a one (1) tampon at the Manly Men. IT LOOKED LIKE A WAR MOVIE. THE BROS FACES WERE FILLED WITH HORROR AS THEIR BUDDY GOT SHOT. HE WENT DOWN SO DRAMATICALLY AS SCREAMS FILLED THE BUS. BOYS WERE SLINKING AS FAR AWAY FROM THE DEADLY TAMPON AS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. ONE BRO WAS EYEING THE EMERGENCY WINDOW WITH ALL SERIOUSNESS, READY TO FREE HIMSELF FROM THE THREAT. BEING IN CHICAGO, THE BUS DRIVER PULLED OVER ASSUMING A KID ACTUALLY GOT SHOT. A GIRL HAD TO GO GET THE TAMPON SO THE GUYS WOULD STOP SHITTING THEIR PANTS AND SIT THEIR ASSES THE FUCK BACK DOWN.

I have deduced 2 things from this whole experience: 1. men are ridiculous 2. I wish I had thrown more than one tampon

TRUE STORY

When my brother was in high school, as a prank, someone stuck a pad to the front bumper of his truck.  A CLEAN, UNUSED PAD.

My brother came home from high school, 17 years old, CRYING and my dad made ME go get it off his truck.

I had honestly forgotten about that until just now.

I sincerely regret never having done this during my school days.

story time (again!)

one time, in the middle of my freshman year, I was sitting in the band hall talking to a bunch of friends before school. let me preface this story by saying they were all guys (one of the hazards of being in the saxophone section–guys outnumbered the girls 6:1). Anyway, I dug around in my backpack for a tampon and slipped it into the sleeve of my sweater and was about to excuse myself to the restroom (which, if anybody has been paying attention, they would’ve known what was going on, because I’ve never been exactly subtle about things like this) but one of the guys kind of guffaws and goes “what’s in your sleeve? a tampon?” and I guess the way he rolled the word off his tongue like it was some kind of insult really bothered me, so I just pulled the brand new, still wrapped tampon out of my sleeve and went “you guessed it” and popped him across the cheek with it. I walked away to the restroom, vaguely aware of the strangled noises and sounds of disbelief and horror coming from the group of guys. They were all paying attention enough to know that I was digging in my bag for a tampon or pad, but apparently, the sight of the thing was too much for them. That group of guys couldn’t look me in the eyes for a few weeks, all because of a wrapped tampon

Yep. I’m an electrician, and we carry voltage meters with us (slang: “Wiggy”, from an old brand name of meter that just about no one uses any more). They take up too much space to put in a tool pouch, so if you don’t want to leave it in the tool box/bag, you’ll have a separate pouch on your tool belt for it. A long, narrow pouch that is convenient as hell for putting spare tampons in where they’ll stay clean and undamaged until needed.

A lot of the guys just leave their meters back in their tool boxes, which are in the gang box, which is usually some hike away from the actual work. So, “can I borrow your meter?” is something I hear a lot. And the response is always, “sure.” They always emit a high-pitched scream (somewhat similar to the tone emitted by the meter when voltage is present) when the tampons fall out when they take out the meter. “WHAT ARE *THOSE* DOING IN THERE?!!” I’ll pick one up and do my best Groucho Marx imitation (with the tampon as cigar): “Whaddya think they’re doing in there, sweetheart?” (wiggling eyebrows, “cigar” tapping). Their reaction is adorable. In almost thirty years of doing this work, I’ve yet to get a blase–“oops, didn’t mean to drop your tampons” response.

So what I’m getting from this is tampon shotguns/grenades as a weapon against overaggressive dudes in public spaces, y/y?

oh my god, what a genius idea.  some dude won’t shut the fuck up, you don’t even look up from your phone as you pull a tampon out of the bag and just wave it at the motherfucker like a wizard’s wand.  AWAAAAAAY.

….what the hell is wrong with guys.

oh man oh man I now want to keep a new pad in my pocket at all times for the occasion of being harrassed, calmly opening the pad, and stickying it to the jerkface’s face “To catch the bloody stupid ideas that keep dripping out of your mouth”

using an applicator tampon to fire the tampon at someone (you’d have to hit it hard & fast but practice makes perfect)

MOAR STORY TIME:

in high school, in an AP science class, all the boys were in a group and huddled around something and acting like it was a bag of puke or something and daring each other to poke it. one of the girls asks what they’re doing and the boys look at each other all sly and shit and run over and shove this long white odd-shaped pen in her face. they ask her to identify it. she says its a pen. the boys look disappointed and go over to me and ask the same thing. 

i say “its a weird shaped pen” and they wiggle it around a little bit and go “yeah but what does it look like?” Im clueless to what they’re going on about. meanwhile all the rest of the class is watching. the dude finally gets tired of the unimpressed responses he’s getting and goes “it looks like a tampon, right?!” all triumphant like he found a bug and expects us all to scream in fear of it

instead the first girl he talked to reaches over to her bag and starts to rummage around going “no, THIS is what a tampon looks like” and BEFORE SHE CAN EVEN FINISH PULLING IT OUT all the boys have scattered to the farthest corners of the room, screaming, like banshee-roaches when the lights come on

it was funny as hell XD

all the girls were laughing their asses off. the boys didn't’ live that down for the rest of the year.

I once opened a brand new box of pads and as I was opening it my brother literally started screaming about how gross it was. I tried to tell him they were clean but he just kept telling me they were still disgusting so I took one out and threw one at him and he FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. My mom was lowkey laughing but I still got in trouble cuz he literally would not stop screaming. Keep in mind my brother is 21. Men are weak in the face of plastic and cotton.

So moral of all these stories is that we should all carry around tampons to shove in cis boy’s faces.

it’s like Kryptonite

breaking news: men are afraid of pads and tampons, but not baby nappies, which are basically the same thing but for different people

I’m never leaving my house without a tampon ever again

Okay, but like all of the guy friends I have, know that I keep an emergency stash in my car and all of my bags. They will GLADLY grab one for me, they know what brands I like more and what I need on what days of my period. I've had guy friends that pick up ice cream and tampons for me. My friends are happy to teach other dudes that they're being stupid and that tampons are great, because otherwise there would be a bloody mess. ANYWAYS, make friends with dudes like this. They're keepers.

goal in life: memorize the entire Pokerap.

CELEBRITY FUTURE TELLING

I made a trashcan for people’s hopes and dreams. 

You don’t know me until you stayed up till 4 A.M with me