'Always' under cover

In Egypt, 'Always' is a word that has two meanings; either "All the time" or the pads used by women during their menstrual cycle. And in an Egyptian Pharmacy, when you hear 'Always' then definitely what's being meant is the one concerned with women only issues.

It all dragged my attention the day I went into the pharmacy to get medicine and found a man that looks in his 30s asking for 'Always'. It wouldn't have been any attention catcher to me except when seeing how he's asking for it. I can assume that out of embarrassment he was turning his voice too low and had no eye contact to anyone in the place including the doctor he's directing his order to. Unfortunately enough for him, he had to repeat the same order again as the doctor couldn't hear him the first time. Fortunately enough for me I was close enough to him to hear him ordering 'Always' twice, when it seems like he would have preferred to get shot killed over ordering 'Always' publicly.

The very first thought crossing my mind was 'How nice of him!" He had to do that for a woman's sake certainly, and had to put him self in such an embarrassing situation (from his point of view) just to rescue a woman, while she might have no clue about the struggle he had to go through to do her something that might seem very simple. But the question is "Why does it have to be any embarrassing after all?"

Same like the idea of lingerie and under wear shops, Durex stands, etc. Even though I might give an excuse to these stuff to be embarrassing in our culture that still suffers to a large extent when the word 'sex' gets any close. Despite the fact that many of those embarrassed ones are sex experts, only, under cover. On the other hand, I can't find an excuse of what's embarrassing regarding the menstrual cycle and whatever is engaged with it. Why can't we say 'Sorry, I'm PMSing' if a man mentions I look tired and asks about what's wrong with me? Why can't we carry the 'Always' we're buying in the normal pharmacy bags instead of those black ones as if I'll either get arrested, harassed, mocked or thought bad of if someone sees 'Always' in my bag. Why can't any man order 'Always' for his wife, sister or daughter normally? Isn't 'Always' another form of Pampers that we get for our children or old ones? Isn't the menstrual cycle just like any other physical change a person might come through?

I'm not asking for breaking down our modesty, instead, I'm asking to stop living in duality. The duality that is present in being modest in what is normal  while forgetting about it when it comes to throwing the worst insults in the street publicly for example! I'm asking to stop leading a hypocritical life, a superficial life that's based on what we were raised on and what the social mirrors reflect on us to do and say without any brains given the freedom of thinking on its own and giving each thing its real weight and value. I'm asking for not living 'Always' under covers.

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