Fancy Pants

This probably won’t interest you if you are a male reader. Unless you want to read about menstruation .. but if that’s what floats your boat then you’re in the right place.

Ok, so periods. We all get them, it’s part of human female function and yadda yadda yadda.

As you all know I have recently moved to Australia from England so it’s been a long time since I had a period in Australia and needed to buy period paraphernalia.

I’m a creature of habit. When I find a product I really like I generally stick with it until something better comes along or it does something I don’t like.

So because tampons generally do the same thing and as far as I know there hasn’t been any brilliant innovation in that arena, I always buy the same brand. It’s not something I have ever spent much time thinking about really. Apart from wondering why on the ads they always pour blue water onto the pad to prove it’s absorbency.

However when I got back to Sydney I couldn’t remember what brand I used so I just picked one and went with that.

Now, working for a tampon/pad company must be pretty boring. Especially if you are in the marketing department .. there are only so many ways you can improve such a product so I guess all they’re all bored shitless and sometimes decide to change the packaging colour maybe, no?

Obviously.

Rather fancy aren’t they? I can assure you that tampons in England don’t look like that. They don’t try to make them look like confectionery at all like we do here.

Australia must be leading the world in tampon design because in England they don’t even put little pointy arrows in the direction you need to twist the wrapper off. Not only that they’ve even provided colourful arrows in all shapes and sizes just in case you get it wrong! So thoughtful and high tech.

However if there is an award for the tampon/pad industry each year. An annual big shindig for marketing and design people who are clever enough to make it to pad design then I’m sure the winners this year were the ones who invented this.

The first time I saw this I laughed so hard that it was lucky I was sitting on the loo. For non Australian readers, the sticky part of the pad when you unfold it now comes with useless bits of information on it.

Factual pads. Pads of knowledge. Menstrual learning.

I often have to stop myself walking out of the bathroom and announcing things to my family like “did you know that the first hair dryer was powered by diesel fuel” .. and “The airplane that Buddy Holly died in was the ‘American Pie'”. Otherwise Rob would think I’m googling stuff while I’m on the toilet. Or that I’ve snuck a pack of Fantales in there or something

What are we supposed to do with this knowledge? How did someone think that up? Why did someone think that up?

Do we keep the bits of paper and collect them like those cards you get at Woolies? Bring them out next time there’s a rainy day and no Trivial Pursuit at hand?

It’s very mysterious and I’m intrigued. I have so many questions but so few answers …

What do you think of the knowledge pad? Learnt anything life changing lately?