Was this an unredeemable moment?

The problem with locker room showers is that anyone can use them and leave anything they want behind. Anything.

 

Today I found a used tampon.

Gross.

The often present hair clinging to the walls I can wash down the drain by filling my soap dish with water and having a splash fest. Left behind panty liners and used bandages I can try to avoid. Empty plastic bottles I can toss out the door. But a bloody tampon on the shower floor? Pretty much a health hazard that has got to be removed.

Had there been another shower available, I would have walked away. Everyone else had, according to the “Oh, I saw that and so didn’t go in that stall” and its variations I heard when I voiced my disgust. All I can say is “Thank God for strings.” Since we have no paper towel dispensers in the locker room, I gathered a bulk of toilet paper to protect my hand as I picked up the string and carried that personal item to the trash can, much like I might grab a roach by its antenna and gingerly carry it to the toilet for a quick swirly.

My face involuntarily grimaces in disgust just thinking about it.

Then I grabbed my soap dish, filled it with water, and washed the lingering blood down the drain. Probably needed bleach, but I didn’t think about that at the moment.

Revolting.

What kind of person can leave behind a tampon in a shower? Did it fall out, unnoticed? (Not bloody likely.) Did she intentionally remove it and then forget to take it with her? Did she think, “Oh, Mom will take care of it”? Hello? Your mother doesn’t work here.

I hope she heard my ranting and raving — and the chorus of women in agreement — and so doesn’t do this again.

I tried to craft some spiritual lesson I might gleam from this short episode in my morning. Perhaps  that line from Isaiah: “Though my sins be as scarlet, you wash them whiter than snow.” This could be “though my tampon be red as scarlet, the shower washes it whiter than snow”?

Uh. No.

I am just grossed out.

I believe this was one moment that can’t be redeemed.

Be thankful I didn’t shoot a photo.

The photo I did choose to accompany this post actually does pertain. My first year of college I lived in a dorm suite with 11 other women who attended an all-girls school with 339 other women. We decided to “dress” as a box of tampons (unused, thank you very much) for Halloween — donning all white with strings coming out of our heads. Classy costume, that. We might have taken a photo, and I might have taken a photo of that photo for this post, since I didn’t have my camera with me in the locker room showers for obvious reasons. (Hello? My smartphone isn’t waterproof.)  And no, I’m not ashamed of dressing as a tampon in the least, despite the fact that I was the only person in Rosemary Suite who extended the costuming to include a white, clay mask on my face; oh, wait, I see my roommate on the bottom row joined in my enthusiastic portrayal of this feminine hygiene product. (Why not get a facial while posing as a tampon, right?)

Fun facts about Sara. The prize at the end of a disgusting post. 🙂 Maybe this post, if not that moment in the shower, has redemption after all.

Live clean, my friends. And put litter in its place.