Irrational menstrual fears:an illustrated guide

These fears have all probably made their way into my brain through some kind of deep subconscious sense of shame and repression. Maybe I am afflicted by a horrible fear of my womanliness and femininity. Maybe society has trained me to be afraid of my body and its functions. Maybe this is all demonstrative of a bigger, crueler oppression that threatens to insidiously engulf womankind. Maybe I should rebel. Embrace my 'Special Time' and all that it entails. I should probably run naked through the forest, 'free-bleeding' and howl with wolves and roll in mud and adorn my hair with a wreath of dead leaves

Instead, I am plagued by a collection of slightly absurd/slightly legitimate terrors. This stuff scares the shit outta me.

1. Tampon string over-hang.

Imagine this: I decide to get in touch with my inner Destiny'sChildBootyliciousBeyonceShakiraTick-tick-BOOM!holla! self and invest in some little skimpy, sassy outfit. Like maybe some shiny red leather, thigh-high hooker boots. And maybe I'd just watched Kylie Minogue's 'Spinning Around' video and decided that hey, if Kylie can wear shiny gold hotpants, then dammit, I can too!
So I'm strutting my stuff. Workin' it. Putting my thang down, flipping it and then - in a final stroke of ingenuity - reversing it.
And then I feel something tickling my inner thigh. Understandably, I assume I'm just a little turned on by myself, and this 'tickle' is just my raw, untamed feminine sensuality. You know, the usual.
But it persists. It's annoying. Maybe it's a bug? Maybe I should swat it?
LO AND BEHOLD it's my tampon string. And for some reason, it's much longer than the average tampon string. It's really more like a rope. You could scale mountains using this baby. Or maybe there's just a kite lodged in my vagina somehow. I don't know. The point is: there's this long string, flappin' in the breeze, and I can just feel everybody's eyes following it up to its origin. I feel exposed and ashamed.
This is the stuff that keeps me up at night worrying.

2. Tampon 'pile-up'.

I am terrified of forgetting I have a tampon in and forcing in another. Then forgetting that one, and adding another. And on and on and on. Until eventually they all 'rear-end' each other all the way up through my body, somehow making their way into my digestive tract, at which point I begin projectile vomiting tampons all over the place.
Now, before ya'll get up in my grill about how this picture is 'gross', I'd like to remind you that these are used tampons which I have just thrown up. They should be covered in blood and bile and gunk and stomach acids and uterine lining and bits of my lunch. When you look at it in that context, this is a very tame depiction of my mental image of this scenario. You're welcome.

3. Being eaten by the 'sanitary waste disposal unit'.

Firstly, I'm pretty sure this is actually the LEAST sanitary waste ever. Secondly, these disgusting bins of horror are the enemy. They decorate them with flowers and hearts and birdies and use cursive font to write words like FEMININE, FRESH, LOVELY, PRETTY, GIRLY, DAINTY, PINK and LADY-LIKE. Do not be fooled: these words are intended to trick you into thinking they are actually not only harmless, but sweet and pleasant. They are not. They are giant evil boxes of blood-soaked wads of smelly, possibly toxic, gloop
I live in terror of getting my hand stuck in one. I realise this is unlikely, as my hand is not required to enter the unit. But in my head, I'm going to one day get my entire arm lodged in there. I'll be stuck, up to my shoulder in used pads and tampons. They'll have probably all congealed into one disgusting, rotten, oozing mass.
And assuming I was in the middle of my business when this occurred, there's a good chance I wouldn't have pants on. And one-armed, it'd be pretty hard to re-dress myself, especially if there were tricky buttons and belts involved. And so I'd be pantless, with half my torso stuck in the tampon bin, screaming out for help. Someone would have to kick the door in...possibly and handsome fireman... and rescue me. By this stage, I'd have flailed around so much that there'd be 'sanitary' debris everywhere. Generations of women's old blood would smear the cubicle walls. I'd probably have old tampons tangled in my hair. It'd be bad.

4. An overachieving uterus.
 

I don't like to do things half-assed. And so I don't imagine my uterus would feel any differently. It would be competitive. Fiercely aggressive. Single-minded to the point of obsession. If another uterus expelled x amount of gunk, then god dammit it's gonna top that by 400!!!!
Hence my fear. I worry that it'll get carried away - lost in the moment - and machine-gun-style shoot out all its contents. But then what? It'll keep going, certain that it can do better. Until eventually IT TEARS HOLES IN ITSELF AND TURNS INSIDE OUT. Can you have a prolapsed uterus? I don't know. But anyway.. that's what'll happen: it's collapse in on itself and flip outwards and eventually FALL OUT, possibly taking my other internal organs with it. And then it'll probably demand a medal for its troubles.

 5. Being raped/mauled/attacked by somebody's dog/baby/wild animal/creepy sex offender uncle because they can sense that I am a giant untamed hormonal ball of blood and fertility and girl-juices and raw feminine sensuality just ripe for the plucking/eating/ravaging.

Actually, this is totally not irrational. You think your friend's puppy is just pleased to see you? That their little waggy tail and dripping tongue is because they're a happy little bundle of cuddles? WRONG. See at that mad look in their eye... they know. They can sense blood and they want it. They can feel the hormones thick in the air. They simultaneously want to kill you and hump you. You are not safe. Do not wear skirts - there will be a nose in your crotch and it will be cold.