I Can't Get No Satisfaction

mor‧ti‧fy Pronunciation Key - [mawr-tuh-fahy] Pronunciation Key - verb, -fied, -fy‧ing.
–verb (used with object)
1. to humiliate or shame, as by injury to one's pride or self-respect.
2. to subjugate (the body, passions, etc.) by abstinence, ascetic discipline, or self-inflicted suffering.
3. Pathology. to affect with gangrene or necrosis.
–verb (used without object)
4. to practice mortification or disciplinary austerities.
5. Pathology. to undergo mortification; become gangrened or necrosed.

The mortification I recently experienced was not as a result of gangrene or necrosis, although, looking back on the experience, those are two highly preferable conditions to the one I found myself in recently.

I had made a quick trip to the supermarket to buy my monthly supply of ‘feminine hygiene products’ and was intending just to pop in, grab what I needed and hightail it home before the really arsey traffic set in. All in a day’s work.

I’m not squeamish or embarrassed about buying tampons and pads and since I’m just running in quickly, I never get a basket to carry them in – as If that would suddenly make them invisible to my fellow shoppers anyway. I like to think that by brandishing them in plain view of the rest of Pick ‘n Pay I’m doing my bit to unnerve those WASP-y neurotics you can see doing the should-I-shouldn’t-I dance with the full cream milk in the dairy section. Ah the sweet smell of arrogant feminism in the morning…

I’m a sucker for marketing so you can imagine my glee when the newest gimmick, ‘feminine fresh wipes’ for your handbag, was offered as a freebie attached to a packet of pads. “Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans – I’d better stock up on these puppies”, I thought (yes, I really do have this kind of internal monologue going on in my head) so I grabbed a few along with some boxes of tampons (I like variety).

I made my way to the till and happily plopped everything down, got out my purse and waited for the cashier to ring it all up and bag it. But what would this story be if that had happened? On another level of boring, that’s what. What actually happened was that she looked up at me with eyes wide with what might have been either fright or pity and said, “You must use all of these? Hau! Shame.”

I was gobsmacked. Was she judging my sanitary towel fetish? Did she wonder how it was possible for me to be walking if I was in such dire need of all those products? And the worst thing was (that’s a bit of a throwaway line – it was already pretty awful) she actually waited for an answer. It wasn’t rhetorical, she was fully prepared to have a conversation about my menstrual cycle right there at the till point. What was I supposed to say? “Better safe than sorry”? She literally waited for me to mumble something about variety and marketing, which clearly was not the answer she was looking for because she replied with a knowing wink to the person BEHIND me. Jesus wept lady, have a heart. Luckily the woman behind me had the decency to smirk into her single ply loo roll. Cretins.