My First Period

The other day I was given the task of moving a number of boxes. Here are the little details that made this a difficult undertaking. 1) There were many, many boxes that needed to be moved. 2) They were all crammed with paperwork and several of them were falling apart. 3) They were all stacked on shelves that were twelve feet high.

I really don't mind doing things like this. I think it's kind of fun--menial labor, that is.

Anyway, the boxes were stored in our little warehouse where we keep all of our pawn loans. Now, the aisle where this paper work was stored was pretty full and had lots of things either sticking out from the shelves into the aisle or just resting in the aisle altogether. This meant that I wasn't able to fully open or properly balance the ladder I needed to use. I had to leave it closed and slant it up against the towering shelves.

Now, the leaning ladder wasn't too bad. It was very sturdy and wasn't going anywhere, so I had no worries about it sliding out from under me. But the hazard that is my sometimes clumsy nature was a potential threat to my life. Little did I know that rather than falling off the ladder, my oafish nature would materialize in a different form that day.

The task went fairly smoothly. I climbed up the ladder, got a box, carefully set it on my shoulder, climbed back down, carried the box to where I was stacking them for eventual removal, returned to the ladder, and did it all again. And again. And again. And again.

At one point, I was just about to set a box down on the floor when I noticed that half of one of my hands was covered in blood. I often find my hands bleeding from some minor wound I didn't realize I had sustained. It's a part of my life. 

Of course, I went right to the bathroom, washed the blood of my hand, and put a band-aid on my knuckle wound. No big deal. I've done that a million times. That finished, I made sure I hadn't gotten blood on anything. I checked the ladder, and it was fine. I checked the shelf where I had last been working, and it was clean. And when I checked the boxes I had been moving, I found one tiny smear of blood on one of them. But that wasn't a big deal. I just tore off the little bit of cardboard that had blood on it and threw it away.

Feeling relieved, I went back to work.

And then I noticed it.

A big blood stain. Next to my crotch. On my khaki pants.

It looked like I'd finally become a woman.

Mortified, I went to the bathroom and tried to scrub the blood off. I made quite a bit of progress, but for those of you who have encountered blood stains, you know there is just no getting the blood totally out of light-colored clothing--especially with water and paper towel alone. Try as I might, a light red smear that was easily identified as blood remained.

I tried to continue on working, hoping that the spot would lighten up and disappear as my pants dried. It didn't. In contemplated just working and hoping no one would notice, but I didn't like the idea of my blood being on my pants. I kept thinking about bumping into things and leaving particles behind.

Luckily, I had been planning to attend a friend's birthday party immediately after work and had brought clothing to change into. Without telling anyone, I switched into my black jeans and continued on working.

At first, I hoped no one would say anything about my change of attire. But then I got to thinking.

Just because my co-workers didn't say anything about my pants, it didn't mean they didn't notice that I'd changed. I began to wonder if they had noticed but were confused and discussing what possibly could have happened to make me change pants behind my back. Maybe they thought I desecrated myself or had a weak bladder. I started to wonder if I should just draw their attention to my pants and then make a joke about how I'd gotten blood on them, but that felt too insecure and desperate. I told myself to stop being such a baby and carried on as normal.

In the end, no one said anything about my change of pants that day. I seriously doubt anyone noticed, but I could be wrong. They could not be referring to me as "The Poopy One" or "Sir McPee-In-His-Pants" when I'm not around. Ah, paranoia.