Lost but not forgotten

OMG!!

This story is a little gross, so bear with me, because it's not about the story itself, but ..the "Big Brother is watching " angle.

Alexa, I'm convinced, listens into your conversations, but who the hell ever knew she could read your THOUGHTS??!!

The latest "And Just Like That" episode  realistically dealt with uptight Charlotte teaching her daughter Lily how to properly insert a tampon, a ritual some young girls learn from older sisters or bunkmates at camp.

I don't have an older sister, and I stopped going to camp before I became a woman, and once that happened, I'd use those bulky pads and garter belts.

(This is NOT TMI--it is LIFE and if you're not comfortable reading about LIFE, scroll on)

Like Charlotte's daughter Lily,I was faced with mastering tampons(I was a little older--I was eighteen, I think) to go to a pool party.

If my Mom ever opined that the string could be hiding in my "tushy crack", like Charlotte told  lily,you would not be reading this blog because I would no longer be living.

But anyway..here's the gross part, I really DID lose one..for what turned out to be four gross months.

I have no idea how it knew how to swim up toward my uterus, but it did, and I went to my family practitioner, even 'though I never saw a doctor for any OB/GYN issue in my life.

I was mortified in a paper gown, with my feet in stirrups, with my mom's tampon brand playing hide and seek.

The first time I went, Dr. Miller looked at me, asked me if I was "having relations" (which... I was NOT...!!) and after a quick, gloved, mortifying exam, told me I probably had forgotten that I had removed it.

The second doctor, the one I was more comfortable with, kindly asked me if I was still a virgin, (why, yes I was)  when he too, looked for the Waldoesque feminine hygiene product.

He was KIND about it, not subtly  accusing me of being promiscuous and deserving of my fate.

This second doc had no luck, but I did..after four months, the gross wad of cotton came out while I was bathing, but here's the point:

I did not tell anyone this story..not even Jim...until now.

All I did say  when various "And Just Like That" groups were talking about the realistic way Charlotte dealt with her menstruating daughter, is that  "I could relate."

And last night, before drifting off, I thought about the kindly family doctor..Dr. Norman Knee.

I THOUGHT about it..I didn't even tell Jim my story..and I thought about all those jokes regarding his (given!) name, since he did a lot of orthopedic work.

Right after I solved today's "wordle"..in two tries, (which is not a lucky guess but the work of a skilled anagram person) I checked Facebook, and under "people you may know" the first name that appeared was..

"Dr. Norman Knee."

He was in my pelvic fifty years ago, he was in my THOUGHTS last night...

..But who could have possibly KNOWN that??????

Alexa..what gives???