The supposed trend of teenage girls getting drunk by way of vodka-soaked tampons (or the male equivalent, “butt-chugging”) was dubious from the start — “urban legends,” they used to call them. But because the Internet is a place without shame, and the Huffington Post is the Las Vegas of the Internet, here is the story of a grown woman putting two things that don’t belong together in a dark place, where one of those things is never supposed to go. Yes, Danielle Crittenden, the managing editor of the Huffington Post Canada, pulled the stunt herself. First, she addressed the questions on every woman’s mind:
When you soak the tampon, it enlarges (duh). How then do you reverse engineer it back into its applicator to “toss it back,” so to speak? And without the help of the applicator, wouldn’t it be like trying to shove an unfurled umbrella back into its cover? Ok, so maybe you don’t remove the tampon, but soak it in its applicator: Just stick it in a martini glass like a swizzle stick. Classy! Still, how does it absorb the alcohol if it can’t expand?
She deduced that both plastic and cardboard applicators got in the way of the soakage, and so she settled on a “super-plus tampon, no applicator.” And make it a double! No, seriously: “Wait, a super plus couldn’t handle a double?? I swished it around, trying to mop up some more, but it was finished.”
And then she did it — she really did it:
I repaired to the bathroom and — without too much information here — managed to wad the thing up and push it in where it was supposed to go. (Did it help that I’ve had three kids? Possibly.) Girls, don’t do this in your best party dresses: I think I lost another half-ounce in the process as it splattered on to my clothes and the floor. No need to say “Bottoms up!
It didn’t really get her drunk, obviously, but it burned. It burned like the sensation of realizing that you’ve paraded yourself in front of the masses as a freak show for a cheap thrill and a few page views. It burned like the realization that Google is forever.
