“Duh,” she mumbled.
Tampons.
Of course the feminine products were clear on the other side of the store, tucked into the back corner alongside baby diapers and incontinence panties and all those other gross vagina products that need not ever trouble a man’s gaze.
Housewares. Bed Linens. Towels. Sporting goods.
Target didn’t sell guns. Neither did Walmart or Dick’s. Shockingly, it was illegal to buy a gun online and have said gun shipped to your house. The closest gun boutique, or whatever it was called, that Gina could find online was located outside the perimeter. She might very well be paranoid and possibly in the throes of a psychotic break, but she was not going to drive outside the perimeter. Besides, this was America. Where was the fucking NRA? She should be able to buy an AK-47 from a vending machine outside any Subway.
Feminine Products.
Gina bypassed the giant boxes of pads. She slowed the cart to peruse the more discreet feminine offerings. Tampax had a line called Radiant that instantly brought to mind a spotlight shining out from her cooch. Pearl made her think of oysters, which reminded her of a cartoon an ex-boyfriend had once shown her. A blind man was walking by a display outside a fish market and said, “Good morning, ladies.”
Ha.
Ha.
Ex-boyfriend.
Her eyes skipped around the various products, all colored in pink or blue, just like the baby crap. Cardboard applicator. Plastic applicator. No applicator. Heavy flow. Medium flow. Light flow—who were those bitches? Click Compact reminded her of a gynecologist’s speculum. Sport Fresh: because you love sweating on your period. Smooth: like the bottom of that baby that you are not going to have in nine months. Security: a padlock for your pussy. Gentle Glide: worst pickup line ever. Organic: why go outside to compost? Anti-Slip, Rubbery Grip: the hot new jam from Salt-n-Peppa.
Gina ended up with her old stand-by, Playtex Sport with FlexFit technology. The box was the usual pink and blue, but it also showed the green silhouette of a happy, slim woman jogging along the road, Gone Girl hair flipping off to the side, iPhone strapped to her arm, earphone cords dangling because, like Gina, she couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to work the cordless Bluetooth earbuds that looked like white snot dripping out of everyone’s ears.
Gina imagined the marketing meeting at Playtex. The men had pitched the athletic, happily green gal and the women had pitched a dark red, almost black silhouette of a peri-menopausal female curled into the fetal position, screaming on the floor of her bathroom.
Tough decision.
The wonky wheel nearly sent her cart into a diaper display. Gina contemplated the vandalism with a sense of satisfaction, but she was not that kind of rogue. At least not at the moment. She muscled the cart around. She snagged a twenty-four pack of AAA batteries en route to the cash register, because her vibrator was wildly into period sex.
She was looking for her card to swipe through the reader when she realized that at least ten minutes had passed without experiencing debilitating paranoia.
Gina glanced around the checkout area. An exhausted-looking mother struggled with a baby. A manager-looking employee stifled a yawn as she looked at her clipboard. The young guy at the cash register who’d scanned through what an FBI profiler would call a Period Kit had barely looked at her face.
A full week had passed since Gina had felt herself genuinely smile. Ah, life’s rich tapestry. One minute, you were holed up in a bunker googling machine-gun home delivery, the next, you were out in the world tapping your foot to the Muzak version of “Funky Cold Medina.”
This brother told me a secret … on how to get more chicks …
Tone Loc had been such a visionary. He’d predicted both the downfall of Bill Cosby and the glorious rise of Ru Paul.
“Ma’am?” The checkout guy was waiting.
Gina would not let the ma’am break her cheery mood. She swiped her Amex through the reader. She swirled her signature across the box. She was overly polite to the checkout guy, which he clearly interpreted as MILF desperation. Or MILNF, as the case may be. She shoved the tediously long receipt into her purse. She pushed the recalcitrant cart through the sliding doors.
Sunshine!
Who would’ve guessed it?
Her car was parked in the rear of the lot, something she’d viewed as her own Fear Factor challenge when she’d first pulled into the shopping center. Now, Gina was glad for the exercise. Her hamstrings had curled into question marks from liaising on the couch Miss-Pitty-Pat-style nearly twenty-four hours a day. Sure, she felt gross and sweaty and crampy from her period, but for the first time in Adult Gina History, that was not actually the worst thing currently happening in her life. They should put her silhouette on one of those damn boxes.
Gina: bring on the clots!
She opened her trunk. Even the wonky wheel, which jerked the cart into her bumper, could not sully her mood. She tossed her bags into the car. She reached in for one of the Twix. Gina ripped open the wrapper with her teeth. She fed both crunchy, chocolatey bars into her mouth like a piece of paper rolling into a typewriter, a simile that anyone under the age of thirty would not understand.
Like an asshole, she was too lazy to walk all the way back to the store to return her cart. She had the decency to leave it on the grassy divider beside her car. She got into the driver’s seat. She contemplated getting the other Twix out of her trunk. But the ice cream might melt. So she should eat the ice cream, too. Should she go back into the Target and buy a spoon? Surely, she could not eat such a thing with her hands. Surely,
