Fuzzy on Reconnaissance

I spend a lot of time talking about how weird my family is.  Today, I’d like to mix it up and talk about how weird my in-laws are.  Specifically, I’d like to focus on my sister-in-law, Meg.

While she claims she is of a perfectly normal height, I’m pretty sure Chelsea Handler would mistake her for a nugget.  To make matters worse, she has the chipmunk cheeks and wide innocent smile of a twelve year old.  When she and my brother-in-law go to the movies, she throws on some overalls, puts her hair in pigtails, and takes advantage of the discounted children’s rates.  Those unsuspecting ushers haven’t carded her once.

She has the ugliest cat the world has ever seen.  Yuengling is her beer of choice.  She’s crazy afraid of bugs.  And when she sees random things for insertion into vaginas, she apparently thinks of me.

That thought makes me almost as squirmy as this SNL sketch.

Mom begged me not to blog about this.  I consider the previous statement fair warning to anyone reading this post.  Continue to read at your own risk.

The box was sitting under our mail boxes for two full days before I decided to look at the label.  I figured it was probably for my upstairs neighbor.  She’s always ordering from drugstore.com, despite our living directly across the street from a CVS.  Then again, I’ve never seen her leave her apartment in the five plus years she’s lived in the building, so she may not yet be aware of our relatively new neighbor.  Since no one was claiming it, I looked at the box’s label and was surprised to find my name printed in bold black ink.

I popped the tape with my keys as I climbed the stairs.  I was mildly intrigued when I was the word “diva” on the packaging.  As I pulled out the plastic bubble of air and the full label came into view, I was overcome with a blend of fascination, repulsion, and amusement.  The word “diva” was followed by the word “cup” – as in a DivaCup – as in a tiny silicone receptacle for menstrual chunks.  Reusable.  With its own cloth carrying case.  And a “Diva” lapel pin.  All for me.  Oh thank God.  Does Santa have my number or what?

Who on earth would send me such a thing?  I fished through the box to find the packing slip.  “Helping you go GREEN next time you go RED.  Merry Christmas.  From Meg DIVA.”

Holy wow I am fascinated by this thing.  I can’t stop reading the packaging.  Rocco keeps begging me to stop.  He’s particularly upset by the line, “The DivaCup(TM) accommodates your changing flow: simply empty 2-3 times per 24 hours, wash and reinsert.”  He actually turned a little green before asking me to stop.

“Do you think its dishwasher safe?” I asked him.

“Honey.  Please.  Stop.”

“Look at this crazy diagram for insertion!  I apparently have multiple folding options.”

“Wait, are you really thinking about [gulp] using that thing?!”

“Well it’s less wasteful and I’m always bitching about the amount of trash we generate.  But, I think I could only do it once.  I’m a little fuzzy on the whole reconnaissance thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no string.  How the hell do you get it back out?  I’m not looking to see just how much long term storage space I’ve got in there.”

Apparently the DivaCup comes in multiple sizes.  Meg decided my voluminous vag needed the largest possible size.  Well played, Meg.  You grossed me out AND called me loose all with one tiny silicone cup.  I underestimated you.  Well played.

To the marketers of DivaCup: may I suggest avoiding the phrase “do NOT panic” in your instructions for removing the DivaCup?  I am fully panicked about the possibility of panic.  You’re scaring both me and my vag.

Oh never mind, I guess they have to dumb down the packaging to avoid any potential lawsuits.  Otherwise I can’t imagine the necessity of the second sentence in the following passage:

If the stem irritates the vaginal opening once it is positioned correctly, you may remove the cup and trim the stem slightly.  Only trim the stem after removal.

Ladies, if your first reaction in the aforementioned  situation is to head towards your girlie bits with a serrated knife in hand, you should not be licensed to own and operate a vagina,  let alone a menstrual cup.

Still reeling from the surprise of receiving such a gift from my doe-eyed sister-in-law, I shared my tale with a couple of girlfriends over some tasty, vodka-laden holiday punch.  Fueled by fizzy alcohol, I may have used even more profanity and disturbing visuals than usual.  That is, until one of my girls interrupted with her confession that she LOVED her DivaCup and could never imagine using anything else.

I was floored.  I did manage to stop myself from asking her if she had it “installed” at that very moment, and if so, could she show me how she fished that bad boy out.  May it never be said (again) that I completely lack restraint.  Some might even say my cup runneth over.

Blech, I grossed out myself.

I bet you kids just can’t wait for the follow up to this post.  I’ll give you a little time to recover before I post an instructional video and photos of the DivaCup in action.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need both hands while I figure this thing out.