Julie S • Arkansas • 50
I was away from home at the car race track in Atlanta with my dad. Just the two of us. Where there were only porta potties. His girlfriend couldn’t go so I was pretending to be an “adult” and also was his pit crew. So I was already nervous, wanting to impress my dad, and afraid because I was awkward and shy, technically not old enough to be there, and wearing a pass with someone else’s name. I had to stand in front of everyone in the crowd close to the fence so I could time him, put the time on the board, and hold it up really high so he could see his lap time every time he came around the curve called “the bitch.”
Luckily I was wearing red overalls. At the end of the first the race day, I asked him to take me to the drug store and of course he wanted to know why. I was so embarrassed. This was BEFORE pads had adhesive on them so I had to get a belt and the pads.
Later that evening, the toilet at his friend's fancy house overflowed because I had flushed a pad down it (I didn't know any better.) It was a hot, sticky, terrifying weekend. The next day I had to change my pad in the back of the van because the porta potties were so disgusting. I was 14. I was really glad when we got back to our town and he dropped me off at my mom's house.
