Note: The following passage is excerpted from the book “Leftovers from the Feast”, a compilation of non-fiction stories written or edited by Fred Blahnik.
So Carolyn, Larry, and I were sitting outside our tent at a campsite picnic table next to a pristinely beautiful lake in way northern Minnesota one evening–casually talking among ourselves, listening to the enigmatic loons chortling their haunting messages out on the open lake, and savoring a cold beverage.
The only drawback to an otherwise thoroughly enchanting evening?
The mosquitoes that summer were horrible and wouldn’t leave us alone for even an instant. Larry in particular was growing ever more exasperated with the persistent insects and his increasingly profane language reflected this fact, although quite possibly the overabundance of beer he was drinking also contributed heavily to his ornery, pugnacious attitude.
Anyway, an especially annoying mosquito wouldn’t leave Larry alone, so he finally took one last violent swat at the buzzing insect with his left hand. I don’t remember what the hell ever happened to that opprobrious mosquito, but I will never forget what happened next to Larry’s expensive golden wedding band: It raced off his ring finger not unlike a starving dog being called to supper. The glimmering orb skipped perfectly off the surface of the wooden picnic table we were sitting at and proceeded to fly speedily into the tall weeds nearby.
Well, the situation we were facing at that moment wasn’t really so bad at first blush. The thick weeds were taller than some NBA basketball players and an army of famished mosquitoes was no doubt eagerly awaiting the arrival of their smorgasbord meal back in that miniature jungle–True!–but the three of us “southeasterners” nonetheless figured it shouldn’t take too long to find the delinquent ring. After all, we had pretty much seen the exact trajectory it had taken and also where it had alighted in the weeds.
Or so we thought……
Accordingly, Carolyn, Larry, and I ventured off into the thick foliage adjoining our campsite in search of Larry’s errant ring. We looked……and we looked……and we looked some more.…..and yet we still couldn’t locate that damned piece of jewelry in those egregiously tall weeds!
Meanwhile, we three modern-day stooges were naturally and personally embodying the primary source of nourishment for half the mosquito population which inhabited the sprawling Arrowhead Region of northeastern Minnesota at the time. And let me assure you right now, also, the plight we were facing that vexing evening was every as bit as frustrating as being locked in a tiny room with a know-it-all asshole for twenty four hours straight, because all three of us had very distinctly seen where Larry’s ring had sailed into the lush vegetation, but mere minutes later it was as though the mischievous little son-of-a-bitch had somehow achieved invisibility and disappeared from the face of the earth.
In the midst of my searching, however, serendipity at least showed enough kindness to pay me a visit; I happened to run across something of lingering interest lying on the moist soil back in the dense weeds. This object was white in nature and not very big, so I picked it up in order to more closely examine it. The riddle I held in my hand was soft in texture, cylindrical in shape, and unlike anything I had ever seen before in my young sheltered life. I lifted it up right next to my face for a good visual inspection in the diminishing sunlight, squeezed it tightly to get a good feel for its composition, but I must confess my curiosity did obey certain bounds: I may have smelled the strange entity in passing, but I can hereby guarantee you that I did not submit the inscrutable object to a taste test!
But, y’know, even after all that squeezing and ogling and inspecting I still quite frankly did not know what in tarnation I was holding in my hand, therefore I finally beckoned Carolyn to come over to where I stood to see if she could help me identify the cryptic thing.
My older sister immediately sidled over and glanced down at the item I was clutching in my hand as though it was some sort of valuable door prize. And then in the next fraction of a second her eyes exploded to the size of hula hoops and she cut loose with an instantaneous, otherworldly shriek of laughter that would have killed head lice. I obviously didn’t know what to make of Carolyn’s weird reaction, so I just stood staring at her dumbly while continuing to stake proud ownership to the strange cylindrical entity.
But when she finally stopped laughing long enough to catch her breath, Carolyn pointed down in the direction of my hand and screeched, “THAT’S A TAMPON!!!!!”
A tampon….?
Did you say A TAMPON, Carolyn?!
What on Earth is a tampon anyway?!?!
I was a gifted speller in elementary school who very seldom misspelled any assigned words, yet I could never remember seeing this particular word on any of the spelling lists my elderly, predominately female teachers had handed out to me………
As you might imagine, I was totally clueless and didn’t know what to make of the situation or Carolyn’s uproarious appraisal of the unknown object either, but I sensed from her reaction that it must not be anything good at the exact instant I instinctively felt my face turning redder than an overripe tomato, therefore I hastily tossed the peculiar white thing further back into the weeds and slunk back to our campsite to commiserate and lick my emotional wounds.
Truthfully, I don’t think Carolyn stopped laughing for the next ten minutes, meaning I was still no closer to knowing exactly what it was I had been protecting so vigilantly in my hand. And feeling acutely embarrassed by Carolyn’s bizarre, unexpected reaction, I never bothered to follow up on the issue with her either, meaning the word “tampon” would not join my personal vocabulary with any degree of familiarity for a long time thereafter.
Incidentally—despite an exhaustive search—the three of us vacationers never did find Larry’s oversized wedding band that rankling evening in the wilds of beautiful northern Minnesota.
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