If You Disagree With Me, You're WRONG

A special birthday wish list...

The Girl is about to turn 8.  This is a momentous occasion, of course.  How exactly does one go about making her birthday a happy one?  See, last year her generous grandparents bought her exactly what every 7 year old needs: an iPod Nano.  What?  Your 7 year old didn't get a Nano for their birthday???  Clearly they are not one of the cool kids.  The Girl is just that awesome.

The problem with getting presents like that is that you then raise expectations.  Grandma and Grandpa asked The Girl for a wish list this year.  She made one out with 4 items:

1) Barbies -- a very appropriate gift for an 8 year old, even though she has DOZENS of them all ready.  But whatever.

2) Costumes -- why not?  Lots of girls like to play dress up, and she's finally outgrown most of the dress up clothes that we'd gotten her 4 years ago.

3) A make up set -- well... okay, I know there might be some contention here, but I see nothing wrong with it.  She can't wear the make up to school (against the rules), so it's not like it would be an every day thing.  Mainly I think of it this way...  If something's forbidden, it becomes *necessary* and thus something that a child is likely to pursue.  But if something is made to be okay, seen as "regular," when the time comes that she is old enough to actually wear make up, she'll be comfortable with it... and thus won't slather it on with a trowel and look like a whore.

4) Dresses -- hey, The Girl is a girly-girl and she likes to wear pretty dresses.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, despite my own tom-boyish tendencies.

So she turns over her list to the GPs and continues on her merry way.  Then she was confronted with something Grandpa had.  A very cool gadget.  And The Girl fell in love.  She sneaked back upstairs and amended her list (which, for some reason, was written on the back of a paper plate).  What could she have asked for?  I'll show you (warning: she wrote the list in pseudo French):

You've never tried a pad like this. GUARANTEED.

Such is the claim of Always's latest product, Infinity.  For those of you who don't know, Always is the brand name for a Proctor & Gamble feminine product.  Specifically what is known as a "maxi pad."  This is used, by women, when their ovarian dams burst.  Something has to catch the blood when you're hemorrhaging like a horse.  Some women use tampons, which are like little cotton sticks that you stick up your twat.  But I find them very uncomfortable.  I can feel them when I use them, and the one thing I don't want to constantly be aware of is my crotch.

Prior to the 1980s, women wore what is known as a sanitary belt.  This was like a garter belt with a connector in the front and the back, to which women would attach a piece of cloth to soak up the flow.  This is why menstruation is often referred to as being "on the rag."  Thankfully I wasn't around for things like that.  I like the stick on option, and I love that Always has "wings" -- which are wrap around flaps to hold the blood better.

So when Always came out with this new style, I was kind of excited.  They're much thinner than even the regular Ultra Thins, yet they're supposed to have awesome flow control.  Last night I tried them.  There are two things to keep in mind with me.  First, I never have more or less than a "regular" flow, so I don't need super or light or anything else but "regular" strength.  Second, I don't have problems with leakage at night, so even when sleeping, I have never needed big honking pads.  Which is nice!  I'm a lucky woman.

My first impression was that they were VERY comfortable.  It reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons where Marge broke her leg.  It started out with the family skiing, and Homer runs into Ned Flanders on the slopes.  Ned is wearing a skin-tight ski suit and shakes his butt saying "Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all!"  So the comfort level was AWESOME. My second impression was that it had good coverage.  It's a long pad that has a wider back end, which should offer better protection.  All good news!

In to bed I go, and after several hours I finally fall asleep.  I wake up feeling clean, don't see any leakage, there's none on the bed.  We're all good.

Until I stand up.  Then the flood gates open.  Occasionally this has happened before.  If I spend the night on my back, the flow tends to get stuck up in there and just hang out.  With the thin maxis, the pad manages to catch it before it goes anywhere else.  The Infinity, however, had nearly no absorption power.  Leakage everywhere.  Down my legs, onto my undies, onto my pajama bottoms.  All covered.  When I went to clean up, the flow did not seem to be intense enough for that kind of explosive reaction.

I've heard from a friend that the Super absorption level is better, so I will probably give that a try.  But given that I can get 90 pad packs of the Thin Regular from Costco, I suspect that the Infinity will NOT be worth the extra money for me.

Edited to add an update:

Wore them today, and still awful luck.  The first one worked well enough, but the second one leaked again.  I'm TOTALLY going to make claim on that guarantee and get my money back.  Don't waste yours on these pads.  They're not worth the extra money.

Rayon Shirts, leg warmers, or lumberjacks? Why must we choose???

Why must we bring back *any* era.  Are we really not creative enough to think of new things?  It was bad enough when we had to live through the 70s again.  How many times must children be forced to wear shit like this:
And to be honest, this isn't as bad as it got.  I remember the polyester and mother-of-pearl buttons.  That was hell.

But no, that wasn't bad enough.  That was just a taste of evil.   Now we're stuck with the 80s.  That is a whole smorgasbord of evil.  While I liked the music a hell of a lot better, we still had things like this:

Were our ankles just really, really cold??  Or did we, as an entire generation, just really lack fashion sense?  What on earth could explain that?

There is NO explanation, and there shall be no forgiveness.  Can YOU forgive someone who brought us parachute pants and members only jackets? Well, I can't!! Do you hear me???  I just can't!

There are certain crimes, so great, so wrong, so terrible, that they must be punished.  But how do you punish someone who has inflicted such pain on so many people??  Execution seems a little harsh, but maybe we can pull a Napoleon and exile them on Elba.  Ooooh, wait, no he escaped from there.  Maybe St. Helena, since that's what kept him -- or maybe we should just give them syphilis.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

At least we haven't quite regressed back to the 90s.  I've seen enough unwashed masses and lumberjack plaids to last me at least another decade.  Worse, though, however are the posers.

Those who DO wash, but wear the plaid, those who shop at The Gap for their deliberately distressed jeans.  If you buy your clothes at Hot Topic, that's just as bad and labels you a poser more than anything.  The only thing worth buying at Hot Topic is bumper stickers.

You can't pay more for your haircut than the income of a small nation and yet still expect to be taken seriously.  And, as we all know from South Park, all shopping at Hot Topic does is eventually lead to the Vampire fad, and NONE of us want that.

Please, people.  Please.  Stop "bringing back" other decades.  Be creative!  Or better yet, just stick with (non-acid washed) jeans and a t-shirt, and call it a day.  We'll all have much better lives for it.