I began my period when I was only nine years old. Back in those days, one tended to be embarrassed by it and not so open about it as we tend to be these days. 

For both the third and fourth grades I was in what was cruelly known as the Retard Room. The “RR” wasn’t only for those who were slow, but for those like me who didn’t get that no matter how many times her mother may club her over the head with whatever object was handy and convenient at the moment, grinning through the classroom window while the teacher and students tore up the room in search of the little girl’s glasses that she hid, was simply unacceptable behavior. 

So I was basically a two-in-one… slow plus a troublemaker = doubly fucked up. 

During the fourth grade when my period started, I would take my “supplies” to the ladies’ room. 

“Jodi’s taking a brown paper bag into the bathroom,” one boy whined in a tattletale tone to Mr. Kelly, the school’s only male teacher back in the mid-70s. 

“It’s okay,“ Mr. Kelly said. 

Ok or not, my cheeks flushed with heat as I made my way out of the classroom, into the hallway, and down to the bathroom, horribly embarrassed that the teacher knew just what was in that little brown bag of mine.