Why Would You Shave off Effervescence?

This is my own personal Vagina Monologue.  Or Vagina Mono-blogue.  Yeah,  I word-played that shit.


My parents have never been discrete.  That goes for anything and everything that they have ever done in raising my two sisters and me.  My sisters and I are All-American alpha-females of Italian and Spanish heritage.  Both parents come from Roman Catholic upbringings and grew up right outside of New York City.  So not only are we loud, but we enjoy our food and wine like a pigeon on fresh garbage.  


Both of my parent's mothers raised their children with the knowledge and intelligence of a fourteen-year-old girl and essentially used guilt as a way to keep them in-line.  They were both the eldest sibling in each family, or the 'first pancake' as I like to call first-born children.  My mother was a participant of the Woodstock generation and my father decided that he would start growing his mustache at this time, for he had a really sweet, convertible Jaguar that he used to drag race through The Bronx with.  I guess, when you have those kinds of wheels, a mustache was a standard practice.  However, unlike the Jag, the stache never died.


I have no idea why my parents decided to move to one of the preppiest, wealthiest and lamest town in Connecticut.  They fit in like a crocodile in a Chinese laundromat.  They make a scene even when they don't think they are.  They could care-less if they embarrass their children.


Let me prepare the rest of this story with this notion.  I get that all parents are embarrassing according to their own children, but for a majority of people I know, their parents, at least, fit into their community.  They are not socially awkward, they carry on conversations about intelligent matters and keep their mouths shut when needed.  I don't think my mother or father ever understood their perpetual ridiculousness that seemed to hover above my sisters and me.  They thought they were golden.


I don't think our family ever actually owned a car that was under ten years old.  We have had wood-paneled station wagons when people thought they did not exist anymore.  My father has had at least four different cars since graduated high school.  If one of his cars breaks down, don't worry!  He has another one that he can fix, sitting in our driveway like a stupid fart box.  Same goes for washers and dryers.  If one breaks, he has another one lying around.  Like, how the fuck did he have another dryer lying around?  Why haven't I seen it?  Was it in our garage that we cannot even walk into because all of his trinkets are just chillin' like villains in there?  The only way I can describe what our garage looks like is through song lyrics from The Little Mermaid, "Part of your World"...


"Look at this stuff...
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the gir...Dad...
The Dad who has...EVERYTHING!
Look at the trou...garage...
Treasures untold (with mold)
How many wonders can one cavern hold? (HAHAHA a cavern of trinkets)
Lookin' around here you think...
'Sure, he's got FUCKING EVERYTHING!!!!!'
I've got gadgets and gismos of plenty,
I've got whosits and whatsits galore!
You want thing-a-mabobs?
I've got twenty (hahaha way more than twenty)
But who cares
No big deal
I WANT MOOOOORRREEE!"






If you could not tell by my imaginative lament, my father has a bit of a hoarding problem.  He thinks that the world is like it was in the 70s where fixing shit was cheaper than just buying anything brand-new.  In this age, everything we buy has built-in obsolescence.  That's the shitty ways of marketting.  Sorry, Pops!


 You can imagine how his world has been raped and pillaged now a'days due to this.  Still, the mustache sits strong and proud upon his upper lip.  


As readers, you must now understand that my mother obviously had to have had a sense of humor to marry such a mustache.
"You're father was very hip in his day." ---Hip?  Okay, (A) Who said it was okay for you to use that word? Hip. (B) I don't think I have ever seen my father buy, do, see, hear, smell, touch, understand, be around, or learn how to use anything technically qualified as hip.  (C) He...he has a mustache. He has not changed its effervescence since he was my age.  But why would you shave off effervescence? Really.


My mother was that woman who told everyone-and-their-sister about our business before we even knew it had happened to us.  Here is where my Vagina Mono-blogue starts...


It was a warm, April day in seventh grade.  A Saturday to be exact.  The day of the Spring Fling.  The next day would be Easter.  I was getting ready at my friend Moose's house.  Plastering our faces with make-up in which we had no idea how to apply.  Scratch that... we knew how to apply it to our faces, but really had no idea on how to apply it to flatter our attributes.  How dare I once think that I could pull-off peacock-colored eyeshadow?  I have poop brown eyes.  How much more of a moth could I have made myself look? 


I was applying bright pink lipstick when I felt it.  


The moisture.


"...the fuck is that?"


I scooted into the bathroom and pulled down my yellow, heinous Hanes and saw it.  My mouth dropped to my neck and I frowned as hard as my bushy eyebrows could before they penetrated my eyeballs and ruined my sweet make-up job.  I can only describe this sight as horrific, uncalled-for and blasphemous.  I thought I had cancer of the vag for a good two minutes until I realized that this meant now I could technically conceive illegitimate babies if I wanted to do so.  This little piggy got her first period.


Moose's mom gave me a panty-liner for the miniscule amount of uterus plop that exited my twat and then we made our way to the Spring Fling.  All damn night, I kept thinking about my period.  I barely enjoyed dancing six inches apart from the deodorant-less miscreants of my junior high.  If they weren't careful, the could get a thigh-full of poon dooty.  


When I went home that night, I informed my mother that I made blood out me lady parts.  A big part of me was thankful that she was, and has never been, a cryer of sorts.  She just patted me on the back and said, "Congratulations, you're a woman now!"  Like...EW.  How dare you call me a woman!  I barely had pubes.  I looked like Angelica's doll Cynthia (from Rugrats) and a Furby combined, but with braces.  My armpits smelled so bad that they would sweat through the weak Lady Speedstick deodorant that I was using.  If I ever smell the 'floral scent' that Lady Speedstick puts out, ever again, I will throw up right where I am standing.  I do not know which was worse.  My armpits smelling like chicken noodle soup from the cafeteria or Lady Speedstick?  The combination of the two was close to trying to cover up the smell of New Jersey with a thousand bottles of Febreeze.  It just ain't right.


The next morning I was getting ready for Easter Sunday Mass at St. John's Church when I realized I needed a new sanitary napkin.  Even in a house of four women, somehow on this day, by pure destiny, our house was napkin-less.  It was about twenty minutes until the mass started and my uterus was relentless.  I remember thinking that I could not fucking deal with having to cope with this shit every month.  Pads felt like diapers and how many pairs of underwear was I going to ruin from this point on?  


As I pitter-pattered up to my mother, in the kitchen, I casually and quietly suggested that we needed to stop at the store so I could pick up some pads.  This is what she decided was copacetic for the situation at hand...


She walks to the bottom of the stairs and yells at the top of her lungs, "Jeffffffff!  Dana needs to stop at the store to buy sanitary napkins!" ---You fucking bitch.  
My sister Bunny enters from out of nowhere saying, "Mom, are you fucking kidding? Why are you embarrassing her!" 
"You're father isn't stupid.  He knew it had to happen sooner or later!" ---Dumb explanations are always cool.
"No, Mom!" She spat.
"He doesn't care!" Another intelligent response.
"Yeah, but Dana does.  That's so fucking embarrassing."  She was right.  


However, my mom yelling that I was in need of vaginal blood-soaking equipment was not as humiliating as having the him escort me into Stop & Shop and into the feminine isle to retrieve said materials.  My dad did not really want to be in this situation either but the man would do literally anything for the three of us.  That's fucking love.  Mustache-style.  


The moment only became that much more awkward when he asked...
"Which kind do you buy?"
"I don't know...uhhh..." I said into my nails as I crunched on the cuticles.
He picks up a big, blue package with a cartoon of a pad in the center.  
"Maxi with wings?" He looked like he was reading Ancient Chinese.
"What are wings?" I was puzzled.
He said nothing and placed them back into their designated area.  I stood there, staring at a wall of vagina products, wondering what all of them meant.  It was in that moment that I came to understand that my vagina was going to have to under-go a lot of maintenance to keep it at peak condition.  There were panty-liners, panty-liners with wings, maxi-pads, super maxi-pads, maxi-pads with wings, regular tampons, tampons sans applicator (took me years to figure out how those worked... never again...)...all of which had the option of scented or unscented.  This does not even cover half of the things I laid eyes on. Fuck, there were pregnancy tests, ovulation monitors, Vagisil, ovule inserts, feminine deodorant spray, gels and creams, waxing kits and feminine wipes galore.  "You want thing-a-mabobs? I got twenty!"


In the time it took me to realize that my lady bits were going to be more trouble than they are probably worth, my father was bantering to himself.
"Why can't your mother do this?" ---Tangent:  Because, on April 2nd, 1978 you made a vow to a woman that you would never leave her until death do you part.  In the time it will take you to 'part', you both decided to make children, and in that time period you started to drive one another up a fucking wall.  You: with your hoarding and your insane need to fix shit with duct tape and rubber bands.  Mom: with her scatter-brained demeanor and legitimately retarded reaction to losing her keys, in which she passed down to all three of her daughters. Somehow, in her sick and twisted mind, she decided that you, yeah you, out of the both of you two, were the better choice in this situation.  The situation being that I am now excreting female software out of my female hardware. Perhaps, in a fucking weird way, she was trying the emphasize that you were still a team.  If you ask me, she could have picked ANY other situation.


 Or...she was just being lazy.  Which may also be valid.


As my dad and I stood there in front of the lady products with frowny-faces, a middle-aged black lady named "Placenta" decided to butt in. ...No, I am not making this up.  Her name was Placenta and I refuse to ever get over it.  


I just have to inquire as to what her mother must have been thinking when naming this big black lady.  Did she think it sounded pretty?  Did she hear someone say it in the delivery room and think it was a name?  Did she think that they had already named the baby that?  


Anyways, Placenta waltzed up to my father and asked...
"Nee' help?"
My father looked at me through his glasses that were sitting on the bridge of his nose with a nervous grin on his face.  He recognized how stupid this entire thing was and how my mom should have been the one here to help me avoid any of this awkwardness.  He could have just said 'no' and spared us both the agony of Placenta helping us with what kind of pad I will eventually end up sticking to the bridge of my Hanes, but for some fucked up reason he said...
"Yes, my daughter doesn't know which kind of...um..."
"TamPONS? Pads?" She was louder than she should have been.  Those words startled my dad out of his loafers.  
I was speechless.  
"Pads?  I guess.  Is that what you wanted?" They both turned to me as if I now somehow knew exactly what I wanted.  As if I just needed a black lady in a red vest named Placenta to help me realize which type I was to now own.  Was this real life?
"Um...I don't know. Panty liners?"
"Scented?" She asked.  
"I... guess?" I rarely ever turn red, but I could feel the fuschia engulfing my face.  
She grabbed a pink package, handed it to my dad and walked away.  Him and I looked at one another and knew we would never speak of this transaction ever again to each other.  We walked to the cashier, purchased the goods and walked out in silence.


I could see my mom laughing in the front seat like she knew what she had just done.  She did that just to fuck with my dad.  How he gets has survived, I will never know. My sisters were both in the back seat in hysterical tears as they watched our awkward faces come out of the grocery store.  My dad was carrying the bag to the car when my school crush was walking into the store with his mother.  
"Hi, Dana!" *Willy said to me.
"Hey, Willie!"
"How is your Easter?"
"It's..." before I could finish my sentence my dad hands me my bag of poonani paraphernalia.  This translucent bag did not leave much for Willie to wonder what was inside of it.  Was my dad fucking kidding? ..."I have to go.  Church."
The damage was done.  Willie now knew I was a bleeder.  Well, I could kiss 'getting my first kiss before I turned fifteen' goodbye.  


Everyone knew I was 'a woman' by the next week of school.  


All of my mother's friends knew by that afternoon.


I got a card with a $10 bill, in the mail, from my aunt saying "Congrats!"


Great, now I could have Dad buy me more pads.