As if going through puberty wasn’t awkward enough, you’ve got to deal with the highly embarrassing moments that come with blossoming into an full-fledged adult. The first time I got my period, my mom was working the night shift at the hospital and I frantically called her thinking that something was painfully wrong with my body. She laughed and told me to grab the pads underneath the sink in her bathroom and she’d tell me about the path to womanhood later. She never really did and forced me to wear straight up diaper pads until I asked my friends in junior high what the other alternatives were.
My best friend decided to teach me what the f*ck tampons do and preached that they were a better alternative to dealing with your time of the month. She stood on the other side of that bathroom stall in school and tried to direct the insertion from the other side of the door. Well, I didn’t put it in all the way in and just pretended that everything was okay. I walked awkwardly the rest of the day until I painfully took the damn thing out after school was over.
When I finally learned how to properly use a tampon, I regretfully asked my mom to buy me a box of tampons because I thought I was too mature for pads. She threw a fit and thought I was having sex because I was using tampons.. While she drove the van full of my girlfriends. Thanks mom, will never forget that moment.
These 23 people wish they could forget these embarrassing moments during puberty:
1.
First period. 7th grade. I go to the nurse’s office, and she hands me a military-grade jumbo-sized sanitary pad that appears to be originally intended as a tarp to cover beached whales. It doesn’t really fit in my underwear. It falls out of my gym shorts onto the volleyball court.
2.
I was about 11 or 12, boobs just starting to grow in, and I had sprained my ankle riding my bike. I was on crutches for a little while, and while at my neighbors house, I was crippling it down the front stoop, slipped, and the top of my crutch got caught under my shirt, and I unintentionally flashed my 13 year old male neighbor. The look on his face told me that was probably the first real boob he ever saw, his jaw hit the floor for what seemed like forever. We made a very awkward eye contact and never spoke of it again.
3.
I remember I was about 11 years old when I got my first period. I didn’t tell my mom because I thought having your period meant you were pregnant. I went to bed on perfectly white sheets and woke up on a Japanese flag. My mom saw it when she came to wake me up and that’s when I learned that having your period means that you’re NOT pregnant.
4.
The one thing I noticed, and tried to alleviate, was the smell. Showers, at least once a day, sometimes more. Deodorant… everything. But man, the moment I was in full blown puberty, it was like I was a pheromone factory pumping out musk to attract a mate 24/7. That and the.. “Oh! You have to go in front of the class today? Here’s a raging erection to help with that!” F*ck you brain and apocrine glands.
Irvi Torremoro is an Austinite by way of Las Vegas. She's worked in various outlets in food & beverage and is now focused on writing, eating all the things, talking about Beyonce, and petting all the puppies. She runs flavorandbounty.com, a lifestyle blog about people in the service industry.
