1 Joy, Define "dumb luck". Take the pregnancy test (I know you said you aren't, but...). Then consider stress. My wife sometimes missed or went 5-7 weeks when she was wound tight. She also didn't believe she was pregnant with our son for about two months. We'd been playing roulette for about three years at that point. Then our daughter surprised us with her arrival 19 months later. We had thought one (or both) were incapable of having kids. We married at 30 and 28 respectively; we were not monks prior to that. If it is that, some go easily. But check with the doc when you get a chance. Other things can cause stops. BTW - I have four older sisters, so "girl stuff" is pretty easy for me. I lost whatever was left during my active duty time; I had several troops that were women and worked for a bunch. One joker noted that I had an emergency box of Kotex in my field kit - until he had to come borrow some for one of his kids that had forgotten. It was precious. SGT Dave

2 Well, I've taken two store-bought tests, and they were the extra-sensitive kind. But at the end of this month I run out of the good insurance and have to go back to the low-cost plan, so maybe I should drop by the OB-GYN's office. Actually, either option would be "dumb luck."

3 Oh, and I thought all soldiers and Marines carried at least pads, if not tampons, strictly for their value in wound-treatment; as I understand it, the California Highway Patrol has carried Kotex for years.

4 Joy, I didn't have pads; they were tampons because that is what the girls used. I have seen it; though they usually choose the generics instead of name brands. We have moved to some really good new stuff, though. There is a powder and a chemical-impregnated pad that will stop bleeding faster than a pressure bandage. I have two friends who would have died without the new kits. Really good stuff, should be on the civilian market really soon (though I am "moving" a few packets to my private first aid kit when I get home). SGT Dave

5 Hey, boyz: do I need to flag these posts? Should there be an "icky girl stuff" warning, as K uses? Please advise. I don't think you need to. But it's been a long time since I was a boy - I just turned 43 myself - and "icky girl stuff" doesn't bother me too much these days.

6 The OB GYN can do a hormone level test to let you know for sure.

7 43 and use the word "boyz" and gets all red about icky girl stuff. Boy we really have created an indulged, childish, I'll never grow up country!

8 Are you telling me it's time to ditch the "Hello Kitty" handbag?

9 Don't ditch "Hello Kitty." It is just becoming popular with little ones again. I'd rather not see these discussions, just like I'd prefer if The Anchoress didn't talk about her drooping boobs, but it is your blog.

10 Well if you're asking me, you're asking the guy who gets himself (and his readers) in stitches over the "tampon angel" craft at Christmastime, so...

11 You can talk about the icky girl stuff. Just don't make it an all "Icky Girl Network". It would get boring real quick. And by the way, 43 is not too old to have the bunny die.

12 Yeah, DC: I saw that post. I actually thought the tampon angel was convincing, but couldn't imagine who was bored enough to want to create tampon crafts. I mean, all those women who buy a big box of supplies and then get blindsided by menopause should just give them to a younger woman and get on with their lives. (Actually, keep 2-3 in your bathroom just in case, okay? More if you're my mother. Though maybe not any more. Yay!)

13 I don't object to the icky girl stuff. It fuels my schadenfreude at having much better designed internal plumbing. But heck, for disgusting personal observations, when I went to Officer Candidate School in 1979 I didn't have a bowel movement for the first four days. Not constipation, just didn't feel the need. Noticed it at day three and got a little concerned, on day four everything was back to normal and I just wrote the episode up to stress. There, don't you fell better now about posting icky girl stuff?

14 I had a bad breakup in my 20s. Got dumped by someone I'd pinned some piece of my ego on (for reasons I can't figure out, decades later) and I found it hard to eat. I dropped below 100 pounds, and by then my mother and I were on speaking terms again, so I was sort of trying to hide it from her lest she push more food at me. She noticed it anyway, though I'm not sure she understood how low the number got (it was the cliched 98 lb). Anyway, during this time I forced myself to eat lots of beef and green salad, figuring that I could use the protein and minerals. And I reminded myself, over and over, that as long as I was shitting occasionally, I'd be just fine. [surveys chunky middle-aged belly] Better by far to be ten pounds over vs. ten pounds under.

15 My wife's time of the month was so regular that this conversation actually happened: She says: "I'd like to do this and that on Sunday." I says: "Can't. You start Saturday. You'll be too cramped up to get out of bed Sunday." She says: "Oh."

16 *ahem* Now just because that extra-big box got acquired just before the first misses, didn't mean I'd never need them again. As I discovered. And by next Christmas, if that same box is still hanging around, DC's got great ideas on what to do with them. Not just the tampon angels, but a link to a bunch of other tampon crafts. Which, of course, can lead to even more. Besides, what if one of those putative Younger Ladies comes to visit and finds herself All Out? Maybe she'll need more than 2 or 3. Don't worry. That big ol' box isn't an albatross around my neck. I've gotten rather fond of it.

17 I wasn't directing that just at you! I'd heard the same story from a few other quarters. I think I'd started to consider it a sort of archtypical thing, like the Murphy's Law of the uterus. Sorry, K!

18 OH! Life as an Accidental Hermit. Having seen no other references to that Murphy's Law of the Uterus experience, looks like I subconsciously assumed I was the only one. As usual, it turned out to be a silly assumption. It was still funny anyway. The mental image of a giant-sized box of tampons around my neck, slowly blooming themselves into Tampon Angels as next Christmas approaches...some escaping their confines and perching on the edge of the box like a ladybug, poised for flight...