Too Much Information- The Flood

In Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, she interviews a lady for Queens who intimately describes an embarrassing moment of her teenage years. In the beginning I understood why this piece was included in The Vagina Monologues because the interviewee was so hesitant to talk about her experience openly. She says, “What’s a smart girl like you going around talking to old ladies about their down-theres for? We didn’t do this kind of thing when I was a girl” (26). Notice how she isn’t even able to say the word ‘vagina’ probably because of her age and how she was brought up.

            The lady then talks about meeting a handsome boy and him coming onto her in the car. That excited her and so she had what is considered as an embarrassing situation. He said to her that, “it smelled like sour milk and it was staining his car seat” (27). My first reaction to reading this was that I probably shouldn’t continue reading this book because things might get weirder. I also found this a bit graphic just the description of the wet car seats and stained leather. Afterwards I thought about it and came to the conclusion that if that had happened to me I would have been just as embarrassed maybe even more. Andy, the boy she was with at the time, didn’t help the situation at all. He made it worse by calling her a “stinky weird girl” (27).

            After this was all over, the woman tells Eve Ensler that she could never have sex again because she was afraid it would happen again. She says, “I closed the whole store. Locked it. Never opened for business again” (28). I thought it was sad that something like this would stop a person from having future relationships and even a family. I’m sure at that time during the baby boom of the 1950’s all women were expected to do was to have kids. I think it’s good that she ended up content with other things that she had going on in her life. She says, “Who needs it anyway? Right? Highly overrated. I’ve done other things. I love the dog shows. I sell antiques” (29).

            I think that Eve Ensler had a good point in starting these interviews because every person should be able to talk about something that has changed their life forever. I was surprised that this woman had never had therapy about this incident before and instead let it control her life. This chapter for me, was significant in that it showed that Eve Ensler had a good point in making these interviews because as the lady says, “You know actually, you’re the first person I ever talked to about this, and I feel a little better” (30).