“Barry,” my cousin Mike said, “I think it’s time.” It was clear that my brother didn’t feel the same way, but he only shrugged, which Mike took as agreement. “Dave,” he said, giving the words as much gravity as he could muster, “Go get the dictionary.” I was nine years old, and a tag-along. I’d walked in on my brother telling a story about how—during school that morning—a girl he knew got her period in the middle of French class. And I laughed like the dickens. And then they called me on it. After I’d lugged the dictionary down from the spare room, Mike told me to look up the word period and read out the definition. “The end of a cycle, a series of events, or a single action?” “Keep going,” he said. “The full pause with which a sentence closes?” “Not that.” “An interval of geologic—“ “Gimme that!” He yanked the book towards him, read down the page, and pointed me towards the definition he’d found. Menstruation: the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from pu...
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When I got back, she was kind of smirking. I ate my lunch, and then moved on to my muffin. A family of four was sitting next to us, and everytime I took a bite of my muffin, they would all giggle.
Turns out (I found out later) that she had dropepd the muffin on the floor, and it didn't just fall and stop. It rolled around a bit.
So she wiped it off with a napkin and put it on my plate. But it was definitely on the floor for more than 5 seconds, as she apparently was deliberating what she should do, with the family looking on.