Last night Kristina and I were going to bed and had a wonderful mutual realization, after letting some empowering television commercials surface in our minds for no reason other than we’d been watching Dateline episodes about women being murdered for HOURS. You know when you feel so connected with another person you know you will repeat the same lines from Laverne and Shirley at the same time and you will know when the other is in danger of buying a synthetic fabric? THAT kind of connection. The kind that protects you, binds you, and makes you smarter. Like when you discovered Melt butter substitute when you’d been eating Earth Balance for YEARS. These are leaps I never could have imagined when I was in my 20’s, just like I could never have predicted the microwave when I was a baby.

Here is what we realized:

Women wearing maxi pads during their period can still be active and exciting women!!!

Here is a list of things women can do while wearing a giant pad (this doesn’t apply to pantyliners because if you’re wearing one of those, you should just stay home and wrap yourself in a sleeping bag and read those dusty Trixie Belden books you’ve been meaning to re-visit. Let her be your surrogate!

1. A woman wearing a pad can ride a bike. If anything, it makes riding a bike nicer because there’s more of a buffer between your soft downstairs and that mean old seat. It’s like adding a mezzanine level to your Holiday Inn (piano lounge optional).

2. The pole vault! This isn’t about having sex with a man or any kind of person wearing a dildo or just having an arm. This is about being a woman in a small pair of shorts, hopefully tight on the leg so your wings aren’t visible, running toward a horizontal line that is high in the sky. You plant your pole in the appropriate spot, let the bend lift you, and aim your pad over the pole. Ideally any lost blood will be read as sweat. Most women wear bottoms that are more like bikini bottoms now, which is great for sealing in the juices (like cooking a turkey in a bag), but that doesn’t mean you have to do that.

3. Deliver the mail. These days women can walk for many blocks with pants, shorts or a skirt on while wearing a maxi pad. Though several exertion points will receive strain during this process, a good pad is plenty wide enough to catch all of the period, at least for a couple hours (depending on what day of her period is happening) (if you’ve hit day twenty please see a doctor) (and stop drinking milk or anything else fucking up human hormones, like tofu).

4. Reset an Internet modem. For decades women have been unplugging, waiting a minute, and re-plugging in these important devices. Without modems, we could never buy novelty shower curtains and deeply hate all the people we actually like on social media websites.

5. Be a drummer in an all-girl pop band. There are many times I’ve watched a band of all women and had a strong sense that at least one of them was wearing a pad. How else could they be so creative and free?

6. Climb a ladder. Birth-age women have needed to climb ladders for centuries. Sometimes they are hanging hummingbird feeders, other times, changing the proverbial “how many women does it take” light bulb. Still other women are hoisting a hand-lettered sign for the opening of their new medical marijuana dispensary or heavily-perfumed bath product store.

7. Drive a lawn mower. There is no more complete feeling than taking your heavy flow for a ride across a great expanse of weeds and/or grass. Circle around your trees, glide gently past your metal fairy sculptures, and regard the neighbor’s seasonal wreath from the throne of your soaking wet maxi pad and the mower underneath it.

8. Be president of a company or nation. Women in power are more likely to wear a pad than tampon or diva cup. That is because they want results they can see. While some less intelligent humans and their minions have suggested that a menstrual cycle presents emotional obstacles that the man leaders and their strong, large, steady hands don’t face, it is our opinion that women, having suffered the utter insanity of having a body, could rule any organization effectively with minimal exertion and maximum absorption.

Thanks for reading, and happy bleeding!