My husband is better than your husband

Last year while we were in Iran, driving through a small town on our way to Isfahan I found that I'd started my period and had none of my preferred leakage control products available. Rather than destroy the interior of the Samand I asked Hamid to pull over at the next pharmacy so I could pick up a box of OBs. Hamid didn't know the word for 'tampon' in Persian, bless his heart, so did his best to ask for what I needed. They brought over a hulking pack full of ultra-thick pads...my worst nightmare. We thanked them anyway and drove to the next pharmacy but again, there were no tampons available. Yet another stop, another frustrating and somewhat embarassing conversation with nothing to show for it. We understood at a certain point that this conservative Iranian town simply didn't stock tampons - a religious bent? I don't know. It was clear to me that this was a tamponless town. A town full of women straddling diapers once a month. I had to accept my fate.

We stopped yet again and this time acquiesced to purchase the offered bag of menstrual pads, each one the full length and width of Hamid's forearm. I widened my eyes in disbelief, took a deep breath like a diver preparing for immersion and ducked into the bathroom to rescue my white capris from a sorry fate. When I returned, waddling and miserable, I handed one of the monstrosities to my husband.

He obligingly took the pad and then quickly handed it back with a look of trepidation that asked: 'What do you want me to do with that??'

Since we'd arrived in Iran I'd been tantruming regularly about having to wear a scarf in the hot Middle Eastern sun...my daily mantra had been, 'If I have to wear one, so do you!' And he had. Hamid, always looking for a way to make me laugh, would dutifully wrap one of my scarves around his own head and neck and smile and coo and bat his eyes until I was in hysterics. It didn't change anything really, I still had to wear the scarf in the sweltering desert heat and he, of course, didn't - but it lightened my otherwise very dour mood on the subject and at least got us out the door without much more fuss. So, it wasn't shocking to him when I slapped the pad back into his open hand and spouted an emphatic 'If I have to wear one, so do you!' And you know what? He did. He went off for a moment and then returned, waddling himself right out the door and into our waiting car.