We have a little game we like to play in our group chat room called “Real Or Fake xoJane Headline.” The goal, as you might expect, is to correctly guess whether the absurd and often extremely long headline is made up or actually exists on xoJane. Spoiler alert: No matter how goddamn fucking ridiculous, they are always real. Today’s contender? “IT HAPPENED TO ME: My Gynecologist Found a Ball of Cat Hair in My Vagina.”
Oh, how I wish this were the one time the answer was FAKE. Alas, it is real. And I just realized that many of us who have pets, including yours truly, should read this piece as a cautionary tale of what might be collecting in our own downstairs.
Michelle Barrow, who appears to be bravely writing this gem under her own name, says she went to the gynecologist because she had a persistent, dull ache in her abdomen. The first sign of trouble came when her gyno sat peering into Barrow’s vag, muttering to herself, “What is that? I’ve never seen anything like that. What the heck IS that thing?” A few moments later, with the help of another doctor and some tweezers, Barrow’s doc pulled out what she allowed her to think was a forgotten tampon, stuck to the strings of her IUD — but Barrow, a Diva Cup diehard who rarely used tampons, knew better the second she got a good look at the specimen:
With her tweezers she holds up a glob about 2 inches long that looks distinctly furry and happens to be the exact same color as Donut. I’m speechless. The doctor’s waiting for me to say something but the only thought running through my head is:
“HOLY SHIT THAT IS CAT HAIR THERE HAS BEEN A BALL OF CAT HAIR INSIDE ME FOR A MONTH THAT IS CAT HAIR AND IT WAS IN MY VAGINA A HAIRBALL HAS BEEN CAUSING MY DISCOMFORT HOLY SHIT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
I hesitate to bring up the fact that these “tampon fibers” look exactly like the piles of goo that Donut hacks up every few days because Jesus I don’t know what kinds of questions that might bring up but I sure as hell don’t want to deal with them so instead I make an awkward joke about never wearing tampons again.
Let’s take a moment to pause and let that all sink in. A ball of cat hair. Extracted from a woman’s vagina. Where it had been for who knows how long.
Go ahead. It’s cool. I’ll wait.
You alright? Okay. Let’s continue.
So how did Donut’s fur makes its way into Barrow’s own fur pie (sorry)? Well, it sounds like it could have happened pretty goddamn easily:
My theory is that our sheets are to blame: I’m not very good at making the bed every day so Cricket and Donut have free reign. My fiance and I don’t use condoms so it’d be easy for him to unknowingly have some hair on his penis and during sex it’d be easy for that hair to migrate to my strings where everything got all tangled up. The thought still skeeves me out.
Who here has a pet that sheds? (Raises hand.) Who here sleeps with that pet in bed on a regular basis? (Raises hand.) Who here has had sex in that same bed without washing the sheets free of pet hair first? (Raises hand.) Congratulations! You may also have a bit of your four-legged bestie nestled inside you! Feel free to freak the fuck out now. As for me, I’m taking the rest of the day off. I, uh, have an appointment.
[xoJane]Original by Amelia McDonell-Parry @xoamelia
