The boyfriend's guide to surviving buying tampons

YOU’VE asked your girlfriend if she needs anything from the shops and she’s asked you to pick up some tampons. Here’s how to cope with this terrifying ordeal. 

Fear control

Your first thought is escape. Despite decades of social progress, you are somehow deeply afraid of purchasing a mundane hygiene product. Thoughts of booking a flight out of the country are a massive overreaction, you idiot.

Excuses

You consider telling her that they were out of stock, hoping that her bodily functions will respect the situation and temporarily pause. Unfortunately, you live next to a big Tesco and it’s inconceivable that they’ve run out of sanitary products. There is no escape, so you should probably just bite the bullet and get on with it.

Lurk around awkwardly

At the shop, spend several minutes pretending to browse nearby aisles, desperately avoiding the dreaded ‘feminine hygiene’ section. You may even catch the eye of another boyfriend on the same mission, warily circling. Unfortunately, there’s only so long you can pretend to look at guacamole for, so it’s all systems go.

Browsing

Eventually, you’ll find yourself standing before a vast wall of tampons and sanitary pads; feeling overwhelmed and scared by phrases such as ‘heavy flow’ and ‘applicator’. Your nerves are frayed and you’ve forgotten what brand you’re supposed to get.

Choosing the tampons

Illogically, you decide to just get her a random packet and hope that they’ll do. This is despite the fact that you bitterly complained last week when your girlfriend bought you the wrong brand of porridge oats – and you don’t even have to insert those into your genitals.

Purchasing

At the checkout you feel a strange need to say to the cashier: ‘They’re for my girlfriend.’ The weary look they give you says: ‘I feel sorry for anyone going out with you.’

Arlene Foster's raucous leaving do: the full itinerary

ARLENE Foster is stepping down as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, which means an awesome leaving do with her fundamentalist Christian colleagues. Here’s what they have planned.

4pm: Goodbyes and leaving gifts. Someone gives a speech about funny moments working with Arlene. There aren’t any. Unfortunately the whip-round only raised £4.42, so she just gets a Union Jack mug in a tatty box.

5pm: Pub. Everyone gets a drink in and conversation turns to light-hearted banter, such as the betrayal of Northern Ireland by the Westminster government and keeping Ulster free of sodomites.

5.20pm: As is traditional with colleagues who aren’t very popular, people are making their excuses and leaving. Several members of the DUP claim they have to go home and look after their cat, who has a tummy upset.

6pm: Food is ordered. A prayer is said to thank the Lord for the meal, and also for warding off Satan in his many guises, such as the Pope.

7.30pm: The drinks are flowing and finally everyone is having a good time discussing how they will never surrender to the IRA. 

8pm: Arlene rings Theresa May to settle a few scores, calling her a treacherous cow. As with all drunken phone calls to your old boss, it goes to voicemail and she will regret it when she wakes up the next day with a hangover.

11pm: Diehard revellers decide to go on to a club. Some of the DUP object due to nightclubs being ungodly dens of vice and iniquity, but it’s decided it will be okay this once so long as no one starts twerking. 

2am: After dancing on her own for an hour in a strange way, Arlene is persuaded to get a cab home, which she promptly throws up in.