News, just out: Tampons are Undignified

Some of you lurkers may have read that I'm sick to death of having a cold that's gone on longer than media attention on a Paris-Hilton ex-shag. The skin directly around my schnozz has worn away to a red callous roughly the shape (and size) of Australia and every eye blink is punctuated with a now-habitual, loud, juicy sniff.

This may all sound like an incredible whinge, but I did feel a bit justified about my self-absorption when a colleague across the campus commented on my continual cold. "MillyMoo, you've been dribbly, snotty and blocked since you started here," and, "I can hear you blowing your elephantine nasal trumpet when I'm out in the carpark!" I may have spiced up her descriptors slightly in the name of artistic license but she made me realise that the sight/sound/produce of my nose was making all of my efforts to appear professional, polite and polished doomed to failure.

Characteristically, I then decided to embrace and celebrate my unavoidable, in-built dagginess and make the most of the Phlegm Factory living in my head.

Shoving two mini test tubes up my nostrils to catch the drips has always seemed like a practical idea, if a little off-putting to my companions or innocent passersby. Letting it run unhampered down my face in a proud-but-putrid display is another option, but it would require far too much social change and acceptance to achieve in a few weeks.

Then Vicki suggested tampons as a replacement for glass tubes. And why not - they're made for absorption and could, if inserted correctly, be quite a decent fit for the 'ol snot pipes. She warmed to her theme when she noticed my interest. "You could hook the strings up to your glasses so that you don't lose them," she suggested.
"Or maybe you could hang tiny hoops and sequins off them as decoration," I replied, crazily pondering a future business winner.

I farewelled Vicki and tried to keep my mind back on my work, but that word TAMPON, kept butting in and out of my already foggy 'It's Late Afternoon and I'm Too Tired To Care' thoughts. Surely, if oversized glasses, bum crack jeans and orange tans have taught us anything, they've taught us that all you need is a wealthy, anorexic, spoilt, cocaine-sniffing Mother of the Year contender to use your product and everyone will want it.

Could Burberry print their trademark tartain plaid on white cotton and get Kate Moss to wear them in her snot slits at their next product launch? Or maybe get a staged 'paparazzo' shot of Sienna Miller lunching with Nicole Richie and Skinny Spice all wearing them with the strings hooked up to their Dolce and Gabbana bug shields?

More importantly, was I prepared to spruik this idea, starting firstly with a photograph of myself wearing them? Oh why not, it was a cheap laugh and a blog idea. I went home, full of beans and asked Love Chunks to take a photo.

I've done lots of things in my thirteen years with him that I thought would shock him but haven't - bungy jumped; dobbed in a bloke right in front of us with oversized luggage attempting to board our plane; thrown a drunk man's shopping bags off at the next bus stop so he'd leave and stop bugging the passengers; got pregnant; got depressed; got well; run lots; got a tattoo.
But this request really shocked him. "No. No. Way. You do NOT need to do that. You just DON'T."
"Oh, it's just for a laugh. I'll crop it so you can't see it's me."
He was adamant. "NO. You don't NEED to do it. Not now, not for this, not for humour, not for your writing, you don't need to."

Maybe that's one of the reasons I love him so much. I may not have the depth, wisdom or creativity to write an article about him that would truly do him justice, but I loved him passionately right at that moment. He was right - he didn't want to do anything that would demean me, and didn't want me to either. Like a L'Oreal shampoo, I was worth more.