Once upon a time, on a West Side Story exporting night, I, Fenna Semken, went to the bathroom. This should not have been a problem, people use the West High bathrooms daily, but it was far from being just an everyday bathroom use.

I headed down the hallway in good spirits, wanting to get back to the newsroom as soon as possible so that I didn’t miss too much of the High School Musical throwback music that we had going. But that is where everything took a turn for the worse.

Here I am, just wanting to go to the bathroom, spacy and overheated from the exporting activities, entering the bathroom in the commons, when I slip on a paper towel and slide ever so gracefully into the tampon dispenser. There’s a loud crash, but it is not me falling head on into this unused dispenser. It is that dispenser exploding off the wall, expelling its contents onto me and everything else.

Tampons and pads strewn across the yellow tile floor, a metal box separated into two parts, and a slightly more bare bathroom wall is what police would have found at this crime scene.

I look around and think, ‘Should I leave, or should I go to the bathroom?’ I should have just left. Falling into the dispenser should have been a sign to get out of that bathroom, that that trip was not going to end well. But want more could go wrong?

Oh, a lot more. I tiptoe into the stall, careful not to step on any misplaced tampons, and close the door. I am about to sit down when I elbow the off-white, scratched up feminine product disposal box. If this had been a normal ‘hit with your elbow,’ the outcome would have probably been different, but this was not a normal bump. I must have gained some super inhuman strength in that moment because I pummeled it, sent it off the wall, under the stall door and out into the open area among the previously displaced tampons and pads.

I am standing in the musty bathroom stall at eight o’clock at night, praying that the contents stayed inside the disposal bin. ‘Deep breath, it’s okay,’ I am saying as I unlock the door and prepare myself to see the damage.

Blood. Everywhere. What have I done? The lid on the disposal bin has become unattached and is in the opposite corner of the bathroom than its friend, the actual bin. The contents of the box is everywhere in between.

I stood there for a good minute thinking about what had just happened, not knowing what exactly to do next. Should I tell someone? Should I clean everything up? Should I just leave and pretend it wasn’t me? I decided the third option was best, and inched my way out of the bathroom, listening for the sound of someone walking down the hallway. After I heard no one, I quickly threw open the door and never looked back.

The rest of the newspaper staff are still well and alive, playing music and exporting the final pages of the upcoming publication. I am standing outside the door, attempting to forget what just happened and act as if I am not the culprit of my recent actions.

I wasn’t going to tell them about what happened, not until someone announced they were heading for that very same bathroom, and I was not about to let someone see the horror story I had created. They decided to use a different bathroom.

I never did get to go to the bathroom that night.

It’s the morning after exporting night. I wake up, I, Shati Cooper, feel indifferent. I go to school, bearing the endless amounts of homework and lectures from various teachers. Lunch time is nearing and I am ready to fly out of chemistry to the nearest bathroom because I had a feeling. But, not just any feeling, the feeling.

I’m mentally freaking out because I wasn’t prepared for this, I already had too much to focus on and the fact that I got my period made it that much worse. I’m rummaging through my backpack for a pad, tampon, something to get me through the day. What did I find? Nothing. Somehow I managed to find a quarter in the depths of my backpack and I let out a sigh of relief.