As I was stumbling into work this morning feeling half dead, I noticed a tampon wrapper on the ground. It was not really near any secluded areas in which one would go to discreetly install a tampon, which I found to be a bit peculiar as well as a wee bit grody. I'm hoping that it just blew out of somebody's trash receptacle from the residential sector about a half a mile away and ended up there on the sidewalk due to the crazy-ass winds we've been having around here lately.
Back when I was oh, 4 or 5, tampons were amongst the many unknown wonders of the world to me. There was always a secret stash of Tampax in the back of the bathroom cupboard, and I never really knew what they were for or why they were there. I even referred to the fold-out instructions showing poor line drawings of chicks putting them in their slots, but never put 2 and 2 together. When you're a kid, you don't know a pachina from a hole in the ground.
I loved snooping around in the bathroom and always knew there were fresh tampons waiting there for me to dissect. I'd play "telescope" with the 2 piece tube and spy on our neighbors. I'd put it up to the faucet and run water through it. I always wanted to do something fun with the stuffing, but never really got too far with that. I had visions of putting googley eyes on the end of the string/cotton wad to make a pet mouse, but never found any googley eyes in Mum's sewing boxes.
Anyhow, I digress. Back to present time:
I sort of reverted back to my 5 year old self seeing this wrapper on the ground. I didn't pick it up and play with it, but sometimes when you see something out of its element like that, it gets the creative juices flowing (no pun intended.)
My first thought was: You know... that's sorta the same size of the packs of RainBlo gumballs I used to get when I was a kid. I wonder how many I could fit in there? I had a few blocks to go, so my mind started to take this a bit further. Tampon wrappers would indeed make great gumball holders. What else would they be good for?
They'd make great protective disposable covers for flushing levers on men's room wall urinals (and conventional lever-equipped terlits as well.) For those of you who like smoking doobies, you could stuff the things full of grass and twist the end shut. Instant Wonder Joint a la Booger in Revenge of the Nerds. They'd also be great cigar protectors. Or you could stuff the empty wrappers full of cotton balls and put the tube back in your purse.
They'd be great portable incense stick holders, covering the fragile "dipped" end as to not contaminate anything in your purse or backpack if you ever wanted incense on-the-go. They'd make great sparkler holders for that matter. I've always wanted to secretly replace someone's incense with sparklers, but will save that idea for my future Fun Things I Want To Do To Get My Ass Kicked entry I've been working on for some time.
If you had 10, you could paint them the color of your skin, put some LEE(TM) Press-On Nails at the ends, and wear them on your hands like long fake monster fingers. That's a great tip, as Halloween is right around the corner.
Hm, what else. AH! You know those new teeny Crystal Light powder pouches you dump into your bottled water? What if you're like me and like the bigger bottles of water? Problem solved - empty 2 or 3 of those pouches into an empty tampon wrapper, staple it shut, and you're all set when you need that extra flavor kick in your water.
Most of the time you see those huge bubble tea straws at coffee joints, they're unwrapped. Why not slip a tampon wrapper over them to keep off germs and dust? Give the bubble tea drinkers a piece of mind knowing that their straws are safe.
I'm sure I'm missing some other great uses for these thin little paper tubes - so please share if you feel inspired to do so. Millions of perfectly good tampon wrappers are going to waste every day and I think we need to stand up and do something about it! I'll keep my thinking cap on as well, and if there's enough material, heck.. maybe I'll submit them all to Heloise's Helpful Hints column in the newspaper.
