Bloody murder

Here's a good ditty...

It was the summer I turned 13 years old and I was volunteering with my BFF (wherever SHE is now?!?!) at a local nursing home. Hey! Don't knock it! I can kick your ass in dominoes any day of the week and twice on Sundays thanks to that summer with the old folks... I mean our wonderful elderly population.

Anyways, so yeah. Well, one night I woke up in the middle of the night with a serious stomach ache. I stumbled to the bathroom, dropped my pjs and panties and sat down. This is when I noticed I was hemorrhaging internally. Or at least I MUST be because I was covered in bright red blood. And when one starts hemorrhaging internally, they do what readers?? They scream! Like I did. I screamed BLOODY MURDER! Here's how it went...

Me: MOOOOOOM! MOOOOOOM! I'm dying!! MOOOOOOOOM!!!!

A couple of minutes later my mom and dad emerge from their room...

My parents: Ari! What?? What is it?

Me: I'm dyyyyyyiiiiiiiiiing. Look!
I held up my hands, covered in blood and pointed to my panties.
Ya know, in hindsight, you'd think I'd get what the hell was going on. I WAS 13 after all and relatively intelligent. Certainly well-read. At least, if you counted all the Sweet Valley Twin/High and Baby-sitter Club books I owned. But no, I thought I was bleeding internally.

Me: I can see the light Mom... I can see it. I'm gonna go. It's so pretty. Hi Tia! Hi Pumpkin! (Tia and Pumpkin were my deceased beloved aunt and dog btw.)

Mom: Oh mija. You're so dramatic.

This is when my Dad turns around and heads back to the bedroom.

Mom: You're not dying mija. It's your period. You're a woman now!

Me: Oh. Yeah. I forgot. This is it? This sucks Mom. So what do I do? Sit on the potty all day or what?

Ya know, I'm thinking my mom and I should have had the talk by then, but apparently not because I really didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do.

Anyways, so I bring this up because my little cousin (Yes, yet another cousin. Dude, I have TONS. I'm not kidding.) started hers the other day.

She's 10.

Poor thing! 10 years old! Ugh! I can't even imagine!

So my cousin has a little brother (yep, another cousin) and apparently although she was introduced to what a period is and knew what was going on, her little brother had not been. So when everything went down, as I hear it, he ran around the house screaming "What's a period? What's a period? Is she going to have a baby? What's a period?" Which to be honest makes me laugh out loud just typing that shit. Man, I wish I had been there! In any case, it reminded me of my experience which I have just shared. Now I say we all sit down with some hot cocoa, a good Oprah episode and cry and hug. What do you think?