Already a banner day for Stunned, I started off the morning by walking around the office with a plastic tampon wrapper stuck to my leg. I’ve been struggling with static issues lately. My hair and my pride are both paying for it.

Luckily, my coworker pointed out my unknown accessory while I was getting coffee in the office kitchen.

“You’ve got something stuck to your pant leg there,” he told me. “A candy bar wrapper or something.” He had just walked in for a coffee refill and was standing a couple of feet behind me, waiting for me to finish.

I craned my neck over my shoulder, trying to see this so-called candy wrapper. Just then, Sushi Girl strutted by, no doubt on her way to the women’s room. Without slowing she told me, “Hey you have a tampon wrapper stuck to the back of your leg.” As the words shot from her lips, the wrapper came into view; I immediately recognized the shiny yellow and white wrapper. How had this happened? It wasn’t even mine…Gross.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, snatching the wrapper off my leg and trying to fling it into the trash. This took more than one try, thanks to the static. Then I whisked my coffee off the coffee machine, making way for my coworker. “Thank you,” I told him. “I have no idea where that came from.”

He shrugged. “No problem.”

I still had to add milk and Splenda to my coffee. Plus, I wanted to wash my hands after handling someone else’s trash.

“Yeah, it actually wasn’t mine,” I continued as I turned the faucet on.

“What?”

“The wrapper.” WHY was I still talking about this? “It didn’t belong to me. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Oh.”

Like he cared either way. Like I even needed to go there. But the little incident had fallen outside of my control in a way that made me feel hot in the face. Talking about it was my flimsy attempt to try and rein it in. But now there was nothing else to say. I’d washed my hands of the situation.

Just then Sushi Girl reappeared.

“FYI,” Sushi Girl said to me in a hushed voice, still perfectly audible to the male coworker at the coffee machine. “One of the toilets is clogged because someone tried to flush something down it that everyone knows you can’t flush down these toilets because they are like super sensitive. Just wanted to let you know so, um, someone doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”

“It’s not mine,” I hissed at her as I furiously shook a Splenda packet. “I don’t even have my period right now.”

The male coworker swiftly departed from the kitchen.

“The evidence indicates otherwise,” she retorted, eyebrows raised.

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes, jerking open the refrigerator and adding a generous dollop of milk to my coffee.

“Whole milk, huh?” she asked, eyebrows still raised. “Ugh. Too heavy for me.”

“What do you add to your coffee?” I snapped. “Water? Laxatives?”

“I mean, just skim milk,” she replied calmly. “Someone’s in a testy mood. I guess I’ll let it go since it’s that time of the month.” She started walking away.

“It is NOT!” I yelled after her. “That was not my TAMPON!”

I turned away in a huff, only to come face to face with my boss, who must have emerged from the men’s room just in time to hear my futile shouts. Mondays are the worst. Period.