ROFLMGRO* — Win a GladRags Sampler Kit!
*Rolling On the Floor Laughing My GladRags Off
Periods can be a lot of things: uncomfortable, a relief, embarrassing, cause for celebration, a reminder of womanhood, taboo, and more. But funny? We think so — and so did Laura S. of Ohio who sent us this story:
One evening on a car ride with my parents, husband, and ten year old nephew, I started singing the song Rock Around the Clock. When I sang the first line of the first verse, my husband busted out laughing. Only I understood why. The first line of the verse is as follows:
“Put your glad rags on, join me hon. We’ll have some fun when the clock strikes one. We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight…..”
Although “glad rags” can mean “stylish clothes,” my husband had only ever heard of the term GladRags to mean your reusable menstrual pads, hence, his laughter! (My husband didn’t believe that I was singing the correct words until we looked it up on the internet.) So now, whenever he sees me reaching for my GladRags, he asks if I’m getting ready to rock around the clock!
We know you have at least one silly period anecdote — from the time your four-
year-old set the table with your “special napkins” to what happened the first time you wore your Moon Cup to school — and we want to hear it! Goofy photos, like this one of 9-month-old Max wearing a (clean) GladRag as hat, are also valid entries for the contest. Even better, the submitter of the most laugh-out-loud hilarious tale will win a Cloth Pad Sampler Kit!
How it works: Post your story or image as a comment on this entry by 3/17/10. We’ll pick a few favorites and to be voted on on the GladRags Facebook page. The story or photo with the most votes wins a Sampler Kit!
So come on, make us laugh!
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March 2nd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Now this was back in the early 80′s. When I was in about the second grade, my mother, two siblings and I lived with my uncle and my cousin. It was a bit cramped. Six people in a very small three bedroom home. My mother shared a room and a dresser with my two younger siblings. For whatever reason my mother left a used pad on top of her dresser and was called away to tend to my baby brother and had forgotten about it. I went into the room to get something and seen it sitting there. Nobody had ever explained to me anything about meunstral cycles or women bleeding or anything. So I was very curious by what I saw. It looked like a giant bandaid to me. I very carefully picked it up and carried it on top of my palm as a waitress carries a seving tray, and walked into the kitchen with it. As my mother sat there talking with my uncle (her brother), I interupted their conversation with a very loud, ‘What is this??!’ My mother shrieked, grabbed it from me and ran down the hallway with it, while my uncle sat at the table laughing his head off. I stood there wondering what had just happened. Well, later that evening…I finally got the talk from my mom that explained what it is that happens to women.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:45 am
The first time I wore a menstrual cup, I had worked a full day of work and went to catch a concert at the National Art Gallery right after. I didn’t go home that evening, but needed to empty the cup. No problem, I thought, since all the literature reassured me that I could just wash my hands and empty it in a public stall. Unfortunately, I hadn’t mastered the art of the “removal twist” and a full cup spilled all over the stall. By all over, I mean on the toilet, on the walls and all over the floor. It looked like a murder scene! I ended up using about a whole roll of toilet paper wiping everything up so that no one would be concerned enough to call the police
After that, I was a little more careful…
March 5th, 2010 at 6:51 am
After I first started using cloth feminine products from glad rags, I usually try to make one big load in the wash for them once they need cleaning and I had an old baby wipe container in my bathroom that I put the soiled ones in until wash day to soak and sat it on the back of my toilet. My husband and I live alone, so I didn’t think anything about it until one night my inlaws came over to eat dinner and my father in law excused himself to go to the rest room. He came back out looking rather white-ish and he said, Im sorry, but I knocked that container on the back of your toilet off and made a real mess, Im not sure what it was. It wasn’t long that they left– I was so embarrassed. I made my husband go explain what it was and why it was there- I don’t think they have been back since- -hehe.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:37 am
Way back in the day, before disposable pads had adhesive on the back, my grandmother would wear a belt that held her pad in place. Fast forward to 1985, when my grandmother went into the hospital to have a little surgery that would require her wearing pads again. It had been many, many years since she had worn pads and during this time adhesive backed pads had become the norm. Anyway, she came home and my aunt and mom gave her some pads and showed her how to take the back strip off to reveal the adhesive and sent her on her way into the bathroom. Later in the day she says, “These pads are so much easier than the belt. The only thing is they sure do hurt when you have to take them off.” She had put the pad on upside down and attached the adhesive side to her body!!!!!!!
P.S. My mom and aunt couldn’t help themselves, they went upstairs and stuck pads all over their arms and foreheads. Everyone was laughing so hard, we were crying.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:33 am
I was a newlywed when I first discovered GladRags in a health food store, a few years ago (I guess I kinda still am!) Both my husband and I were interested in going green and saving money, so I bought a few pieces to see how I liked using them and I loved them! He ended up buying me a starter kit and I thought that was so kind. I realized why he did months later when…I raved about them so much, that whenever I was going to start my period, my husband would be watching me intently. For a few months, I was quite weirded out, because I had no idea why he would stare at me. Then I noticed this habit: My oh-so curious husband would follow me into the bathroom around that time to see if I started, and then when I did, he would watch with intense curiosity trying to see what I was doing, and then he would cheer, clap me on the back and yell, “I’m proud of you baby!” I kept thinking, “Why are you proud that I’m on my period? It means no real great sex!” And then it hit me- he was so excited that I was taking care of our environment, taking better care of my body (the GladRags have led to less medical issues than any other form of monthly-care that I’ve ever used), that he wanted to be present every time to witness the goodness of it all! I started laughing randomly one day when I realized this, asked him if it was true, and he said it was. Now, whenever it’s about “that time,” not only is he keeping track of the days, but he eagerly offers to WASH my GladRags to help perpetuate the “goodness” as he calls it!
March 5th, 2010 at 10:34 am
I was on a group date in high school with several other couples. We had gone on a rather long hike and my menstrual cup was full. What was I to do besides sneak down the trail for a minute. I was too embarrassed to tell my date I was taking a bathroom break, let alone a very odd bathroom break. Why I did not go farther off the trail I do not remember. So there I am removing and emptying my cup right on the edge of the trail and then having to reinsert it with no way to clean up afterward other than a quick spit shine. Needless to say, I was lucky nobody came to check on me or walked by whilst I was doing this. I rejoined the group with a sense of secret satisfaction for having been so sneaky and “granola”. When my date asked where I had been I replied, “Just communing with nature.”
March 5th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
When he was little, my nephew would come stay with my husband and I. We would meet my sister at a convenience store about half-way between our houses.
This one time when he was about 4 or 5 we met at our usual place and I loaded all his gear in my car and then sat down in the driver’s seat and looked over at him in the passenger seat (this was before passenger side airbags) Because he was still so young, his feet stuck straight out, and there, tucked under the shoelaces of each of his shoes was a tampon-cotton part only. I casually asked him what he had in his shoes. He responded, “Those are my ROCKETS!” I motioned for my sister, who was parked next to me, to roll her window down and then told her to look at her son’s shoes. Through her tears of laughter she said, “I wondered why everyone in the store was looking at us so funny!”
My nephew is now 20 but we still love to remind him of his “rocket” days!
March 6th, 2010 at 5:10 am
I’ve worn GladRags for some years now and never realized how much public praise I had given them until recently. My sister and I took my mom to see the musical /Jersey Boys/ when it was at the Fisher Theatre here in Detroit. We all loved the music and spent the evening bopping our heads and politely tapping our feet in time with the show. All was going well until we got to Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons’ hit song, “Rag Doll.” The actor playing Frankie crooned, “I’d turn your sad rags into glad rags if I could,” and my mother and sister both burst into laughter and began pointing at me. Apparently, I had talked about GladRags so much that “such a pretty face should be dressed in lace” was immediately replaced in their minds with, “Hey, Jenni wears those things, right?!” They managed to settle down and enjoy the rest of the show, but the entire car ride home included a healthy discussion of why GladRags should consider adopting “Rag Doll” as its theme song.
March 7th, 2010 at 2:19 am
I’m pretty open about everything to everyone, which has landed me in hilarious situations more than a few times in my life, particularly when I was in the dorms as a college freshman, roommate-less and eager to not have to buy disposables. I had run across the idea of sponges during the day and sleeping on towels at night, but had somehow missed the entire market of cloth pads, in spite of the fact that it was 2007, I was an avid internet appreciator, Computer Science student, and I had read Inga Muscio’s book. Still, I had a pretty good system during the day and was down to panty liners because of the leaks any time I would laugh, but I was struggling with keeping my blood on the towels at night and not on the sheets, which was of course the goal. I had two red towels, a hand towel and a full bath towel. I would keep the hand towel between my legs and sleep on the other towel folded over, but most mornings I would wake up with everything messed up because I move in my sleep. As I said, I’m very open about these things, so stories of my trials and errors were told with gusto at the dinner table, and my friends knew what was up when the red towel was down off the towel rack in my room, including the guy I started seeing. He was also a very open person when it came to bodily functions, being a biologist, and after he took a bit to get over his very intense phobia of human blood (I’ve seen him woozy after stubbing his toe), he spotted opportunity in having a towel right there on the bed where others would have just been grossed out.
But even he didn’t know how to handle it when he came over on a really bad day and out of sheer frustration I had tied a red ribbon around my waist, over the short ends of the hand towel to keep the long end up between my legs. I answered my door with that and a sweater on. I was so upset that I immediately demanded that he not say anything about my appearance, and all he could do was laugh, doubled over, and reply that it looked like a diaper. When I got more upset, he walked me over to my mirror and told me to look at myself. Even hormone ridden I couldn’t stop laughing for five to ten minutes. He never did quit calling it my oversized diaper, and it was a while before I discovered my DivaCup. It did help keep it from moving at night, though.
March 7th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
My immediate family members know about my GladRags, especially since the soak bucket shows up in the tub once a month to collect my pads. They know when the pile stops growing in the water and the bucket disappears, that my period is over. My nephew, however, who comes to visit twice a year, never managed to be here during my special time. I found out the hard way that this doesn’t mean he hasn’t seen my waiting pads in their place in a cabinet next to the toilet. How I found out is an interesting story.
When he was twelve, he was playing outside with the neighborhood kids. A football to the face stopped the game in it’s tracks as he left the kids and said he was going in for a while. We stayed outside, enjoying the weather. A little while later, I went in for a drink and found him laid out on the couch with one of my pads pressed against his eyes.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.
He pulled the pad off his face and looked at me like I was crazy. “What? My head hurts!”
Turns out, he had seen my pads before and he always thought they were fancy ice bag holders. When he helped himself to some ice for his spunk-knot, he put the plastic baggie into one of my pads and applied it to his face. I’m not sure what he thought the inserts, that he had to shake out of the holder, were for, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him he had a pad on his face that I’ve used before. He wasn’t very interested in hearing about the inner workings of the female body, back then, so I just went and got him a washcloth and traded him.
The end result was that he thought I was hogging all the ice bag holders for myself, but that’s ok. I am pretty protective of my Gladrags. What’s the worst that could have happened, anyway … his scrape getting a little blood on it?
March 9th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Up until about 8 months ago, I’d never even heard of re-useable pads, and when I would ask the older members of my family about what women used in days gone by it was “nasty old pieces of used rags” (sounds like something you’d find on the garage floor, not very appealing) and “disposables are a God-send.” After having used the cloth pads, I will never go back! I absolutely LOVE the cloth pads!
Having said that, back when I was in High School in the early 1980′s my 2 y.o. nephew came bursting into the bathroom one day and saw my disposable pad, in it’s full glory none the less, and of course was curious. So as he asked what that was, and I, being an easily embarrassed teenager, had to think quick on my feet to answer his question as truthfully as possible and yet not get into an anatomy lesson! So I calmed myself and with a very “as a matter of fact” voice I said “it’s my menstrual cycle.”
He tilted his head and then the light bulb went on and he said “OHHHHHHHH MOTORCYCLE!!!!! VRRROOOOMM VRRRROOOOMMM!!!!” and went flying out of the bathroom saying that over and over and over!!! After about 30 minutes, he got tired of pretending to ride his motor cycle and I was quite relieved.
Then his parents came to pick him up, and he started all over again!!! He ran up to them and said “guess what? we have a motor cycle!!! VRRROOOOMMMM” I just knew I was going to have to explain what he meant, but luckily, his parents were quite preoccupied and simply replied, “that’s nice dear.” YAY for parents who don’t pay attention LOL
March 12th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
There was one incident that my caregivers and I laugh at once a month. Because of multiple disabilities, I have a caregiver come in to help me out twice a day. Because I had to have a total colectomy and had an ileostomy now, I wanted to make it less “medical looking”. So, one morning, I had just got done sewing 7 ostomy pouch covers and put them in the same dresser drawer as my cloth pads. I didn’t think anything of it until that evening when my caregiver showed up to get me ready for bed. Because I had to change my ostomy appliance, I asked Debbie (my caregiver) if she would bring me a ostomy pouch cover to put over the pouch when I was done. I guess I should have explained to her that I also had all my cloth pads in the same drawer, because she came back all freaked out, saying, “Why didn’t you tell me that your ostomy site was bleeding badly! Oh, we gotta get you to a doctor! Dang it, you are on blood thinners, for goodness sake!” Shocked at her sudden reaction, I asked what the big problem was. She handed me what she thought was a pouch cover. Instead, she had grabbed one of my older (and badly stained) GladRags without the inserts inside. I could not stop laughing! She was confused until I told her that she grabbed a cloth menstrual pad instead of a pouch cover and that I wasn’t bleeding to death. I then said to her “Then again, these pad shells could be used as a pouch cover in an emergency.”, and I put the pad shell over my ostomy pouch as a joke
Needless to say, she didn’t make that mistake again, but it got a good laugh at the caregivers meeting later that month LOL.
January 10th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
I was almost done having menstrual cycles before I discovered GladRags, but my family has always had trouble “leaking” from laughing too hard, so I’ve continued using GladRags and will probably use them until my final days. Feels like I’ve used them for 20 years, but I guess they haven’t even been making them that long. I’ve worn out many of them though.
One of our favorite family stories is about a time we were traveling on vacation, always with three girls in the back seat and my mother and father trading off driving. The middle sister (not me) was a very skilled tease, and often got us laughing so hard we could hardly hold it until we could stop for gas and a bathroom break. One time my mother was driving, we were all bent over double laughing, and she pulled up to the gas pumps. This was in the days when someone would come to the window to find out how much gas and which kind you’d like to have pumped into your car for you. Unfortunately, she was laughing so hard she couldn’t think what she was supposed to say, and she just wanted him to get out of the way so she could get out and race to the bathroom. There was a pause and then she said “Do you have any gas?”
I think all four of us (not my Dad of course) then wet our pants before we ever got out of the car!
How we would have appreciated having GladRags then.
January 10th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
These are great stories! They all gave me good laughs. I especially like the tennis shoe rockets and the father-in-law spilling Teresa’s soaking container. I am old enough to have used the belt system to hold up a pad, but luckily I didn’t have to do it for very long. One of my older sisters taught me about tampons. I sure would have liked to use the cup instead!