Despertar

blood test

A quick survey: Which is grosser, menstrual blood, or poop?

My theory is that the men reading this, all two of them, will choose the former. And that, likewise, the women reading, who have much more firsthand experience with blood, think poop is much grosser. Right?

(I'm not going anyplace meaningful with this, and if scatology isn't your thing, you should probably just quit reading; it only gets worse from here.)

*

I was still on my period when we were planning our Sunday movie outing. On the phone, working out times with him, my heart was fluttering a little bit, not because the sound of his voice does that to me, but because I was counting the hours in my head, trying to figure out exactly what time I could flush the last tampon. Movie outings invariably end with sex, see. And we are not one of those duos who don't mind a little blood as a lubricant.

*

Here's how I know: A few months ago, I think it was August, we slept together in the middle of a week when I'd been PMSing pretty bad. I had deliberated for a long time before inviting him over, finally deciding we were safe, thinking I had, probably, another day before the cramps produced anything, and hoping maybe the sex would help some with the pain. I'm sure you can guess where this story is going, that he spent ten minutes after we were done standing naked in my bathroom, cleaning blood off of his penis. Not saying anything. "I'm so sorry," I called, finally, from my bedroom, where I was scrambling around looking for a tampon. "I know how gross this is--"

"Well, it is gross," he agreed, emerging. He looked dazed, but not mad, thank God. "But obviously it was an accident, so. Yeah."

Eventually he smiled at me, was nice to me, climbed back into bed beside me so we could finish watching Donnie Darko. (Which he hated, but honestly, I think that was because of the circumstances of the night, the messy associations.)

Some time later, we were debriefing Superbad, arguing over which of the many bodily issues is most offputting. He voted for menstrual blood, I voted for poop. I won the argument by pointing out that, on that night in August, he wouldn't have been nearly so forgiving if accidental poop had been involved. We certainly wouldn't have finished watching Donnie Darko.

He conceded that that point, but qualified it, saying, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean it wasn't gross. I was just trying really hard not to make you feel bad."

He's so sweet.

*

Anyway, this past Sunday, I had all that running through my mind, and was weighing the pros and cons of maybe postponing our movie plan for a day or two, to give my uterus a chance to get completely back to normal. (For obvious reasons, explaining the situation to him was not an option. I try to at least not totally turn him off on purpose.)

Pros: No danger of bleeding on Justin, no self-consciousness, no need to do the laundry right afterward.

Cons: No sex, no guarantee of everyone's availability on a later date, no guarantee the movie we wanted to see would last much longer in theaters.

I decided to chance it. I chose the latest showing and wore the most gigantic tampon I could find during the hours beforehand, thinking maybe it would suck everything up most effectively. I was acutely aware of it throughout the entire movie. Fabulous. Afterward, I couldn't wait to take it out in the movie theater bathroom. I did, and it was empty. Blank. Unsullied. Even so, I was totally nervous when we got back to my place and Justin followed me inside. I left him on my bed with the TV remote and a glass of wine, hopped in the shower and scrubbed furiously for twenty minutes. Stepped back out, used a lite tampon as a dipstick (if you will), just to check, and, more or less satisfied, went to join Justin.

He was in one of those moods where he wasn't terribly responsive to my cues, was kindly offering up a whole bunch of foreplay even as I was trying to guide him to just put it in, already. Decided that, on this night, of all nights, for maybe the fourth time ever, he was hellbent on giving me some unsolicited head. "The full experience." Yay, generally, but on this night, when I was already illogically concerned about bleeding on his genitals, the thought of brazenly bleeding on his face left me tense and even more self-conscious than before.

Which, as we all know, does wonders for female arousal. Which meant it went on forever. And ever, and ever.

Finally, FINALLY, we had sex, and there was no blood anywhere, I checked. I loosened up and we had a great time hanging out, after that. [Insert here my earlier anecdote about scratching his back, "Bear Necessities," et cetera.] I felt clean, refreshed, lovely, desirable. Not disgusting at all. I felt I had really dodged a very messy bullet.

*

Right before he left for home, he took what he described as an "unavoidable" trip to my bathroom. (Ordinarily, we'd both rather die than poop in another person's toilet.)

The next morning, my toilet backed up and splashed shitty water all over my bathroom floor.

*

I spent all of Tuesday dealing with the toilet. Researched plunging online, bought a plunger, bought a bucket and rubber gloves, sacrificed my barbecue tongs to the task of removing all solid matter (mostly toilet paper) from the drain to maximize the suction.

Taught myself how to plunge.

Splashed yet more water on the floor.

I didn't want to call my building's maintenance crew, because the guy they usually send to my apartment is creepy and seems to have a crush on me. But after about three uninterrupted hours of plunging and whining to Tina about it online, we decided I didn't have a choice. The guy came up, flirted with me, plunged, flirted with me some more, snaked the toilet, flirted, found an excuse to leave and come back (changed a tiny light bulb over my bathroom sink), flirted some more and finally left.

I skipped a class, and I didn't eat or drink anything all day, because I didn't have a working toilet. That was my Tuesday.

*

Tina has asked repeatedly why the hell I didn't call Justin and make him come back over to deal with the toilet he broke. To which i have two responses. One, he was in class all that day, and having been unable to pee for hours, I didn't have time to wait around for him to satisfy some equity principle.

Two, and here I'm taking a little bit of creative license, he passed August's Blood Test. He was nice to me after I bled on him. I felt I owed him a similar courtesy.

It was mostly the first thing, though.