The Red Flannel Rag

Stories abounded of women touching houseplants and killing them. When a

houseplant died, Mom could always explain it by remembering a visit from so and so,

whi le she was “on the rag.”

Naturally, being the cagey liar I had become from my school experiences, I had a

lot of periods during the summer months when the garden was growing and being

harvested. I used fake periods to get out of work. Mom’s belief that women could

contaminate and kill living plants when menstruating made no sense to me. I knew that

she was canning and in the garden when she was having her period, so I asked her,

“Why don’t you kill and spoil things.” Her answer was interesting. She said, “God made

an exception for the woman who was responsible for growing and canning food for her

family. At the same time, He made me responsible for making sure other women didn’t

kill my plants.”

It still made no sense to me when I thought about it long and hard. Therefore, I

felt no guilt when I used a fake period so I wouldn’t have to pull weeks and pick

vegetables in the hot summer sun.

After Mom told me about the birds and bees and how the period was a necessary

event in having babies, I recognized further contradictions in her story. She always said

babies were important, and people should have as many as they could care for; thus,

periods were important. So, why would God make such an important event as a monthly

period destructive of the very duties women were responsible for doing? Of course, I

presented this dilemma to Mom. She explained, “It as God’s way of punishing Eve for

feeding the apple to Adam.” I ended up more frustrated than before because, on several

153