Roger Ebert pointed out on his Twitter that on this day in 1975, “Jaws” opened in theaters, so I want to commemorate this day by sharing the story of my prepubescent “Jaws” trauma…
My mom was fascinated by “Jaws.” I have lived in California near the ocean most of my life and that summer Mom, like a lot of other people across the country, got swept up in the shark hysteria. Suddenly, going to the beach was a really frightening experience that came with at least a 100-page warning manual and lots of lectures on what to do in case of emergency. The tip I most remember is: “If a shark attacks you, punch it in the nose.” At twelve years old I wasn’t even able to successfully punch a human in the nose. Why on earth did my mother think I was going to be able to repel a shark that way when the best I could manage when picked on by the bully down the street was cry?
Okay, Mom, whatever.
But something else you need to know about my mother is that she grew up in the South, and she was very old-fashioned about a lot of things, like virginity. What the heck does that have to do with sharks? Bear with me….
A few months before the film’s release, I started getting my period. Not only did my mother find it extremely difficult to discuss things that had anything to do with sex (she did sit me down to have “The Talk,” but it was reeeeeeally awkward), she also would not allow me to use tampons, because insertion of a tampon would break my hymen and then, of course, no man would ever want me because he would think I wasn’t a virgin.
I was living in 1975. Mom was living in 1820.
Living in the L.A. area, classes at my school occasionally got to go on fieldtrips to the beach. Not all the time, maybe once or twice a year. On those days, the whole class would get on a bus with our teacher and room monitors and we’d head to the beach where we got to swim and goof off and roast hotdogs and marshmallows over an open fire and sing campfire songs and generally torment each other in that uniquely confusing way hormone-fueled preteens do when grown-ups aren’t looking. It was great.
That year, when the class trip was coming up, my parents allowed me to buy my first-ever bikini, which was really cool.
What wasn’t so cool is that on the day of the outing, I had my period.
And Mom wouldn’t allow me to use tampons.
And Mom had spent most of that year lecturing me about sharks. And how they can SMELL THE TINIEST TRACE OF BLOOD IN THE WATER FROM MILES AWAY AND WILL COME IN A PACK AND EAT YOU IN A WILD UNCONTROLLABLE FRENZY.
Yay.
My mother, God love her, sent me off on that beach trip wearing a maxipad. In my brand new bikini. To enter shark-infested waters as the hors d’oevres that would bring throngs of ravenous killing machines with razor sharp teeth to gobble up the entire class, with my own efficient lure (also doubling as a personal flotation device) tucked not-so-surreptitiously into my pants and making me look like I was sporting a saggy diaper.
Thanks, Mom.
Oh, did I mention that maxipads are biodegradable? I wish someone had mentioned that to ME.
Out there, bobbing in the waves, it took me a while to figure out why there were all these pink cottony fluffies floating around me. What the…? Once I put two-and-two together, I was mortified and frantically kept trying to swim out of the pink-fluffy clouds so they wouldn’t be associated with me, but the fluffies kept following wherever I went, and more were being generated by the minute. I finally managed to get back to the shore where, bikini bottoms sagging down to my knees with their water-logged cargo, I ran into the first stall in the nearest bathroom to ditch the sopping pad in the toilet, hoping like hell that the boy I had a crush on hadn’t seen any of this.
I spent the rest of the day mostly in the water, afraid that the moment I got out my bikini would instantly sprout a bright red embarrassing stain.
To this day I cannot even hear the name of that damn movie without flashing back to that awful day. Let me just say there are times when being eaten by a shark seems like the least of your problems. And there are much scarier things in the world. Like humiliation. (And bears.)
