Please don't be put off by the title. I am going to talk about tampons, but mostly about them in relation to an issue with waste disposal. It will be relatively benign, but you may as well know now in case it's too off putting for you.
Doesn't Everyone Know This By Now?
I'm reading this very funny, engaging memoir, "Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour," by Rachel Shukert. She's a good writer - which from me is high praise, as I am very picky these days - and she's also Jewish, something she mentions a lot. Very witty, very quick - a satisfying read (rare). Her obvious intelligence - combined with her literary success (two memoirs, she mentions, offhand, before she was 30...she knows, she knows!) - make her someone I am going to both identify with and also be fairly envious of, or not really envious, but I'll spend way too much time comparing myself to her in ways that aren't healthy. I need to learn to be inspired by, rather than resentful of, those more accomplished than I. All I can say, is, I'm working on it. In fact, she had a prominent passage in the book in which she, Rachel, talks about her evny of other artists, and does it in a way which makes me somewhat envious of her...so I had a chance to try and practice my Buddhist tolerance (as Spalding Grey said).
Anyway, I am really enjoying this book, which is super fun because I am infrequently really enthused by new fiction these days, and it's all going along swimmingly (I'm doing OK containing or maybe accepting my self-comparisons), and then suddenly, a weird moment!
Now, all my life, I've seen signs, in basically every women's bathroom in America (except for maybe those ones in forlorn Midwest gas stations), that either state outright in words or convey via simple graphics this basic message: "Do not flush used tampons or tampon applicators." Some variant of that. There's always a waste basket nearby (small but there), often with additional graphics showing you just what to do.
And I think, really? How could ANYONE *not* know to do that? I mean, by now, there can't be a single women left who has not gotten the message, can there? It's absurd. It makes me feel like the human race is always doomed to miscommunication. HOW can we still need this omnipresent signage? But yet toilets must clog - this must remain an issue, or those signs would be gone.
Yes, it's always been a mystery. Not a single person I know would do that, or wouldn't know NOT to do it. Yet here I am reading Rachel's memoir - she's in Amsterdam, living with a gay couple - and suddenly she says something surprising - and she's NOT being ironic, or funny (she's explaining why her old roommate hated her, her lack of hygiene especially):
"When he found a used tampon applicator I had wrapped in severl layers of paper towels and buried it at the bottom on the wastebasket (the weak flush in the water-saving toilet couldn't process them), he called the Amsterdam student housing authority." [Emphasis added]
She's obviously implying that - because she *usually* does and this time, this weird exceptional, atypical time she can't due to wimpy Dutch plumbing - it's OK to flush them. Normally, she flushes. In fact, her whole tone implies, flushing is correct. Superior, informed women flush.
She could NOT be *more* wrong. I read this and was immediately suffused with the heat of triumph, of superiority. Ha! How deluded, how befuddled this Rachel is! She thinks she's better than me because of that "two memoirs before I'm 30" thing, but how can she be so stupid to not know about the tampon thing? It's the single most unifyingly communicated message I can think of, other than something like the Golden Rule. If you don't know this, you are an IDIOT.
Now, I'll admit I am maybe overreacting a little bit. I was experiencing some insecurities. I went a little overboard, just, you know, in my heart - which is actually where it counts, in fact. So I am saying, I don't mean to be harsh. Rachel is really funny and I still like her and she's smart, not dumb.
In other words, if we can agree to not flush the tampons, if we can all get on board together, maybe there's hope yet.
Doesn't Everyone Know This By Now?
I'm reading this very funny, engaging memoir, "Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour," by Rachel Shukert. She's a good writer - which from me is high praise, as I am very picky these days - and she's also Jewish, something she mentions a lot. Very witty, very quick - a satisfying read (rare). Her obvious intelligence - combined with her literary success (two memoirs, she mentions, offhand, before she was 30...she knows, she knows!) - make her someone I am going to both identify with and also be fairly envious of, or not really envious, but I'll spend way too much time comparing myself to her in ways that aren't healthy. I need to learn to be inspired by, rather than resentful of, those more accomplished than I. All I can say, is, I'm working on it. In fact, she had a prominent passage in the book in which she, Rachel, talks about her evny of other artists, and does it in a way which makes me somewhat envious of her...so I had a chance to try and practice my Buddhist tolerance (as Spalding Grey said).
Anyway, I am really enjoying this book, which is super fun because I am infrequently really enthused by new fiction these days, and it's all going along swimmingly (I'm doing OK containing or maybe accepting my self-comparisons), and then suddenly, a weird moment!
Now, all my life, I've seen signs, in basically every women's bathroom in America (except for maybe those ones in forlorn Midwest gas stations), that either state outright in words or convey via simple graphics this basic message: "Do not flush used tampons or tampon applicators." Some variant of that. There's always a waste basket nearby (small but there), often with additional graphics showing you just what to do.
And I think, really? How could ANYONE *not* know to do that? I mean, by now, there can't be a single women left who has not gotten the message, can there? It's absurd. It makes me feel like the human race is always doomed to miscommunication. HOW can we still need this omnipresent signage? But yet toilets must clog - this must remain an issue, or those signs would be gone.
Yes, it's always been a mystery. Not a single person I know would do that, or wouldn't know NOT to do it. Yet here I am reading Rachel's memoir - she's in Amsterdam, living with a gay couple - and suddenly she says something surprising - and she's NOT being ironic, or funny (she's explaining why her old roommate hated her, her lack of hygiene especially):
"When he found a used tampon applicator I had wrapped in severl layers of paper towels and buried it at the bottom on the wastebasket (the weak flush in the water-saving toilet couldn't process them), he called the Amsterdam student housing authority." [Emphasis added]
She's obviously implying that - because she *usually* does and this time, this weird exceptional, atypical time she can't due to wimpy Dutch plumbing - it's OK to flush them. Normally, she flushes. In fact, her whole tone implies, flushing is correct. Superior, informed women flush.
She could NOT be *more* wrong. I read this and was immediately suffused with the heat of triumph, of superiority. Ha! How deluded, how befuddled this Rachel is! She thinks she's better than me because of that "two memoirs before I'm 30" thing, but how can she be so stupid to not know about the tampon thing? It's the single most unifyingly communicated message I can think of, other than something like the Golden Rule. If you don't know this, you are an IDIOT.
Now, I'll admit I am maybe overreacting a little bit. I was experiencing some insecurities. I went a little overboard, just, you know, in my heart - which is actually where it counts, in fact. So I am saying, I don't mean to be harsh. Rachel is really funny and I still like her and she's smart, not dumb.
In fact, that makes it even MORE baffling. If she, Rachel the brainy and clever and strong, didn't get the message, really - what hope IS there? None, it seems. We're doomed. If she can't understand this, how can anyone ever hope to understand anyone else? I'm not sure what it all means.
In her defense, I asked the two women sitting by me as I write this (having interesting conversations about Russian rockets and the Hunky Jesus Easter contest in Dolores Park and neo-liberalism) what THEY thought about it. Where do tampons go? "You wrap them up," said my housemate M, "and then...you know...throw them away."
"Where?" I asked, wanting to pinpoint them.
"In the...trash," M said in unison with her friend.
"Not the??" I prompted.
"Toilet," they both say. Exactly, I say. Although A (the friend) did admit these facts: "It's not that I don't KNOW what to do...I do. It's just - sometimes, c'mon! it's really something I do NOT want to have to...you know.." (she rolled her hands in pantomime, indicating the distastefulness of wrapping up a heavilu used tampon). "So I go to industrial toilets - mostly at Stanford, where I work - and I DO flush them...I do. I make a point of it."
Well, at least she was honest. And I can see how someone could flush regularly even though they know it's wrong, and they fancy themselves uber-hygenic or something and above the flushing rules. Rachel might be one of these, and have fancied herself priveledged for so long, she's forgotten she's supposed to pretend she doesn'f flush, she's supposed to recognize the same truths as us all. I mean, not ideal, but at least it's not total ignorance, not total miscommunication. So that's OK then.
Well, at least she was honest. And I can see how someone could flush regularly even though they know it's wrong, and they fancy themselves uber-hygenic or something and above the flushing rules. Rachel might be one of these, and have fancied herself priveledged for so long, she's forgotten she's supposed to pretend she doesn'f flush, she's supposed to recognize the same truths as us all. I mean, not ideal, but at least it's not total ignorance, not total miscommunication. So that's OK then.
In other words, if we can agree to not flush the tampons, if we can all get on board together, maybe there's hope yet.
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