These things have a
practical application, i'm sure. I can't stand the things myself, but *shrugs* i have
friends who just don't find the applicator-less brands as
comfortable or that they don't
sit right for them.
But they also have a far more nefarious use... the Cardboard Nerf Gun from Hell (TM).
I was digging through my drawer looking for something the other day--advil, i think--when i ran into the stash of cheap-ass tampax tampons they always give out free to all the girls, first couple weeks of campus. Now, the concept of tampon applicators generally pisses me off because so many of the people who do use them do do so for the squeamishness factor. So i grab one out of the drawer and begin ranting to mcc, who's sitting across the room looking at me funny. I rip the thing out if its wrapper and start gesturing madly with it while venting. And in the process i gesture just a bit too violently and my hand slips and pushes the inner tube in, sending a tampon flying across the room in the general direction of a very startled mcc.
We look at each other.
Look at the applicator.
Look at each other.
Look at the tampon on the floor.
Look at each other.
And just start laughing. REALLY hard. And we muse about how out of all the female friends we both have, none of them have ever come up with (or at least mentioned!) this before, having so much amusement value as it does.
And then we proceed to spend the next half an hour shooting tampons at each other across the room. Occasionally getting one stuck in the palm tree or bouncing off the door. And mostly laughing too hard to shoot straight.
But they do shoot remarkably well. And they're reloadable, so you don't have to go through a box just to have a war. And they're much, much cheaper than Nerf.
Plus they make a better story ;)