Critical Miss: Issue 6 (Thought For The Soul)

Thought For The Soul

This issue's SoulThought is on the subject of truth, and is inspired by something that happened to me when I was about thirteen.

I had some kind of cold, so I was excused P.E. (the physical education lesson), as were about ten other boys. So, while the rest of the blokes played a game of football, we stood around on the field watching, and talking.

Anyhow, one of the muppets, a prick by the name of Atkins, was sounding on about how "there's a contraceptive machine in the medical lady's room! She gives them out to the girls!"

(The medical lady is slang for the school nurse).

I was slightly skeptical about this (I mean handing out free contraceptives to underage schoolgirls would be pretty controversial now, but this was about 1983) but carried on listening anyhow. Wasn't much else to do.

"Yeah," he continued, "she's got one of them Tampax machines!"

I had to open my big mouth, didn't I?

"Tampax ain't a contraceptive!" I blurted out in surprise, not even thinking about the consequences.

Bad move.

"Ha ha ha!" all the muppets shouted in unison, "Jonny doesn't know what a Tampax is!"

And what seemed like the entire school then proceeded to take the piss out of me for the next three days because I didn't know that Tampax was a contraceptive.

(And people wonder why teenage pregnancies occur).

But it taught me a valuable lesson.

The lesson...