Do Women Always Need to Keep Tampons in Their House? Reddit Weighs In

It’s a near-universal experience for people who menstruate and absolutely a middle school horror story: Your period arrives and you don’t have your preferred period product at-the-ready. Maybe you’re at work or school or the mall or even a pal’s house and you realize you’re up the red creek without a tampon paddle.

It’s yikes-inducing. I feel sympathy pains and second-hand embarrassment already.

One reddit user shared how her visiting friend had such an experience recently and was furious that she didn’t have a stock of period products on hand for guests. The poster has a form of birth control that keeps her from having a period for a few years and doesn’t have use for tampons and pads anyway. But she was wondering, still, if she was TA in the situation

“For context, I have the nexplanon birth control bar in my arm. I know it’s different for everyone, but for me it completely takes away my period and lasts for [three] years. (This is my second time having it.) We were having a movie day to catch up on life since we haven’t seen each other in over a week. During one of the movies she gets up to use the restroom so I scroll through my phone waiting on her return,” the poster wrote. “Well when she comes back down she asks me where I keep my tampons. I responded I don’t keep them in the house since I haven’t needed one in years. She then proceeded to ask me for a pad and I kinda just giggled and repeated myself.”

She said she wasn’t sure if it was the way she phrased it or just that she didn’t have any to offer, but said her friend flipped out, saying things like: “What kind of woman doesn’t keep these things?”

“As a woman you should always keep them?”

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