Article: Sbu Mpungose from Move!

Someone recently asked me about my most embarrassing moment, but it was difficult to remember a horror story that had really left my dignity on the floor.

Later on I had enough time to think about a moment where I'd wished the world would swallow me whole. I came to the conclusion that my most embarrassing moments – like those of most women, I suspect – have involved a sanitary pad (or maybe the lack of one). That 'time of the month' (a universal code for periods or menstruation) is a source of frustration for many of us.

I always watch in wonder at the adverts for sanitary pads showing confident women dressed in star-white two pieces, dancing to infectious R&B tunes and enjoying that time of the month. Only on TV! Ask any women about her clothing colour of choice during her period, and white won't make it into the top 100.

My experience with periods has been embarrassing from the first day, when I told my mother I had started and heard the word 'penis' fall from her mothering mouth. Then my brother found a stubborn pad that had refused to flush (I know you're not meant to stuff pads down the toilet), and of course having to face a male cashier to scan my extra-large night pads.

Those are awful moments but with age you come to accept the gift of menstruating because it's one that will allow you to bear children later. Although I was armed with this wisdom, things didn't turn out so rosy when I boarded a long-distance taxi from Gauteng to KwaZulu-Natal. I was well-prepared – my female stock of goodies was high. I wore jeans instead of a skirt and had extra protection in the form of an IFP (i-full panty) and tights.

Since a taxi doesn't stop until the driver wants to pee or until it reaches a certain shady garage in Volksrust, I figured it would be three hours before I would see a toilet where I could get on with my business. But that day my ancestors were against me and the rude driver decided he wasn't going to stop until much later. Unlike peeing, where you can hold it in, periods are a different story. And one doesn't scream out, "Hey driver, I need to change my pad!" as you would say "Short left," so I was pretty much stuck to my seat.

By the time the taxi stopped, my blood pressure and temperature were sky-high. I had been sitting on that seat with one bum, praying that God had seen my suffering and temporarily stopped the period. No such luck.

Unfortunately, I wasn't sitting in a window seat, so I had to move when the male passenger next to me wanted to get off. I hesitated, but there was really nothing I could do except stand up and expose the red mess on the seat. "Eish sisi, I think there is something of yours that you are leaving behind," the guy said in Jozi Zulu. There was hole in the floor of the taxi, but it just wasn't big enough for me to disappear through.

Don't you just hate it when this happens? Share your shockers with us below.

This column originally appeared in Move! magazine, Township Talk. Sbu is the Editor of Move! magazine. Check her out in the latest issue now!

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