"....and if you need 'em I got crazy prophylactics...."

So I'm in Meijer today doing some early morning grocery shopping and I make my way over to the health and beauty section to pick up a few things before I check out. I'm meandering around, telling myself not to make the endcap makeup display impulse purchase, when I find myself, once again, walking past the condom display. This is not the first time I've wandered past the condom display, not just in this store but others as well..... Target, Walgreens, CVS, the gas station...... glancing but never having the guts to pick up a box. Being a newly single, educated, self-sufficient, healthy red-blooded American woman, it goes without saying that I would, at some point, have occasion to use such things. But for some reason I've always been too embarassed to buy them myself. I'm really not sure what I think the check-out lady is going to think and why I'm so afraid of what she may think, knowing good and well in my rational mind that she probably thinks absolutely nothing except for how long it is until her lunch break. I always chicken out, telling myself "Oh well, if and when the situation arises, I guess he'll have some (if he knows what's good for him)" so I put it off for another day. But then I think about one of my best friends who works for Planned Parenthood as a lobbyist and is working long and hard in DC for not nearly enough money in order to safeguard my uterus and everyone else's, so dammit it seems like that the least thing I could do is take responsibility for my own reproductive health and do something to safeguard it myself.

So back to the health and beauty section..... I make a pass through the aisle, slowing down slightly in front of the multicolored boxes, but then, once again, I keep going. As I'm walking to the check out lanes I remember..... eureka! Meijer has no limit self check out lanes! Yesss! This is my chance to purchase prophylactics without anyone noticing! I make a U-turn back, quickly snatch up a box of Magnums before the stock woman comes back to finish stocking the maxi pads, shove the box under a tub of sour cream in my cart, and high tail it down to the self check lanes. I'm almost home free until my perfect plan has a SNAFU thanks to the aformentioned tub of sour cream. The damn thing rang up the wrong price and I had to have the attendant come over and void it for me, which was all fine and good because I was only half way through my cart of groceries. Whew... she didn't look back into my cart! But then, to my horror, the nice attendant lady proceeds to start bagging my groceries for me! Noooooo!! I slowly and anxiously ring up one thing after another and watch it travel down the conveyor belt toward this extra kind woman, and I am cursing her secretly for being such a good samaritan. I took a deep breath and kept ringing.... nothing was going to stop me now. But then, in a stroke of luck, the people in the next lane over needed some assistance and she left just as the last 3 items were in my cart. Mission accomplished, and I'm now the proud and responsible owner of a dozen "just in case you forgot" condoms.

In all seriousness, though, this was a really unnecesary phobia I needed (and probably still need) to get over. I cannot call myself a progressive, self-reliant, responsible adult woman if I don't take charge of my own reproductive health. This was more about empowerment of self than the absolute need to have them around. Organizations like Planned Parenthood encourage women to not allow other people to be in control of and make decisions about our reproductive health, whether that's the legislature, judges, or our partners. Fact of the matter is "everyone is doing it" and it should not be the case that we are embarassed to buy condoms, but rather embarassed if we don't.