“Here,” Marlene grumbled and tossed down a small white box onto my keyboard—while I was still physically typing on it, mind you.
But considering it wasn’t a Tuesday or a lunch she wasn’t responsible for providing, it wasn’t like she was acting abnormally.
I glanced down at the box and read the words, “Goddess Cup” aloud.
It was a menstrual cup that had recently been released to the market, and I only knew that because of my job. I hadn’t ever been a menstrual cup user or advocate—which made me wonder what kind of horrible reason prompted her to give it to me in the first place. “Why are you giving me this?”
“You need to test it,” she said but didn’t offer any other explanation.
God. I just knew the reason for her unplanned air delivery wasn’t going to be a good one.
“Test it?”
She nodded and plopped her ass down into her designated chair. “Yeah. Test. It.”
What in the fuck is happening?
“This is a menstrual cup, Mar. Why would I have to test it?”
Three huffs of irritation left her lips one right after the other. Apparently, she was the one put out here. “Because I don’t have a uterus, and you do. Plus, you’re on your period this week,” she explained as if that would aid in clearing up my confusion.
Why in the hell does she know I’m on my period? Am I dreaming right now?
I closed my eyes tightly for a good ten seconds to scroll through all of the reasons that even justifiable homicide would land me in prison, and then, when I finally had myself talked out of the cardinal sin, I opened them again.
One thing at a time.
“Okay… First of all, how do you know I’m on my period?”
“Because you’re moody, and you’re eating M&Ms like candy.”
“M&Ms are candy,” I retorted, and she sighed in annoyance.
And I wasn’t eating that many M&Ms. Like a bag a day. A small bag. Well, not a supersmall bag, but like a medium-sized bag. Okay, fine. I was eating a lot of M&Ms, but Jesus Christ, I was on my period, and I had to work with Marlene and Melissa on a daily basis. If anything, they should’ve been thanking me. The M&Ms were probably the real reason I hadn’t strangled one of them to death. Fuck ten-second pep talks about being someone’s bitch in prison—candy was the game changer.
“You know what I mean,” she added with a roll of her eyes. “Plus, I saw you put your giant box of tampons in the bathroom.”
Holy hell. Was this old broad spying on me in the bathroom? Panicked, I looked around like I’d find cameras at reception, too.
“That’s creepy, Mar.”
She stared back at me unfazed. “The fact that you’d need that many tampons for one cycle is creepy.”
“I buy in bulk,” I explained for some unknown reason. “Doesn’t mean I use all of them in a month’s time.”
“Anyway…” She completely ignored me. “We promised the manufacturer that some of our staff would try their new Goddess Cup and give feedback.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to use a fucking menstrual cup.” I refused, what I thought under the circumstances was politely, and slid the box back in her direction. “I’ll stick with my giant box of tampons, thank you very much. And for the love of God, stop spying on me in the bathroom.”
“Whatever you say,” she muttered. “I mean…you’d get an extra five hundred bucks in your paycheck for it, but I’ll let Betty know you’re a no-go.”
Wait… What? Five hundred bucks?
I slid the box back toward myself. “And how many days do I have to test it?”
Sure, menstrual cups made me want to gag, but five hundred dollars seemed like a nice addition to my get the heck out of my parents’ apartment fund. I’d been saving like a penny pincher, and I was getting pretty damn close to reaching the little nest egg of savings that would get me out of Jazzercise purgatory.
“The contract with the manufacturer states you have to test it for at least twenty-four hours.”
I looked down at the box and back up at Mar. The idea of testing the Goddess Cup wasn’t exactly number one on my bucket list—more like my fuck-it list—but it was just for one day… How bad could it be?
“If I still had a uterus, you can bet your bony ass I’d be shoving those menstrual cups up my cooter for five hundred bucks without a second thought,” she stated without an ounce of shame. “Hell, if they paid per cup, I’d stick more than one of those suckers in.”
I fought the urge to projectile vomit across the nursing office. I, personally, didn’t want to think of any situation where Marlene’s cooter was involved. The fact that she called it a cooter was bad enough.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I agreed. “Is there anything I need to do before I try one? Some kind of disclaimer to read? A contract to sign?”
“Just shoot Betty an email that you’re going to do it, and then she’ll have you fill out a questionnaire once you’ve completed the test trial.”
“Okay.” I shrugged and stood up from my chair with the box in my hand. “Sounds easy enough.”
I glanced at my watch and noted the time as I headed for the employee bathroom. It was half past ten, which meant I only needed to get through the rest of the day and part of the morning tomorrow to be done with the official Goddess Cup test.
That didn’t sound too difficult. Hell, I’d be free of it before lunch tomorrow.
Thankfully, the employee bathroom was a private one-stall kind of deal, so I locked the door, got myself ready for the menstrual cup insert, and opened the box without feeling like anyone in the office was lurking around.
The instructions showed numerous pictures of the drawn female figure standing up with her legs spread as wide as they could go. I cringed.
“Good Christ in a ballet,” I muttered, wishing for perhaps the first time in my life I had the flexibility of Misty Copeland. Maybe an Olympic gymnast…someone other than me.
I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be as easy as the standard seated-on-toilet application of a tampon, so I made myself really comfortable by removing my shoes, scrub pants, and underwear and turning myself into a human frog.
Okay, I can do this.
The first attempt, well, it didn’t go so well. The damn thing flipped out of my hands before I could even insert it and bounced on the floor. Eyes wide, I took it to the sink and scrubbed it down and got set to try again. The second attempt was just a repeat of the first.
Jesus Christ, this thing was more complicated than a NASA spaceship manual.
How in the hell do women get this thing inside?