SEALED SECTION: A hardware store and a clitoris "taser". My epic quest for a new vibrator.

My favourite vibrator broke. Like all the great tragedies in my life – season 8 of Game of Thrones, my decision to get a spiral perm in 1996, marble chocolate getting discontinued and Taylor Russell asking Kelly to our year 10 formal instead of me, I didn’t know it was a catastrophic life-changing event at the time.

Much like me thinking that maybe Woolies was just out of Marble that one day, I  assumed the batteries were flat. So off I went to find batteries.

None in the battery draw, obviously. I started looking around to see what I could maybe just steal a battery from. I couldn’t risk touching one of the children’s toys, and accidentally waking them.

I guess I could have stolen from the Netflix remote, but come on. Netflix deserves better than that.

So I went to sleep disappointed.

Side Note: How to have better sex. Post continues below.

The next morning I told the children we were off to Bunnings so they could play on the playground. Best mum ever. After a play, a visit to the BBQ and many, many sausage-themed sexual innuendo texts to hubby, we picked up a couple of megapacks of heavy-duty AA’s.

My youngest asked what they were for when we were at the checkout. The cashier, Trudi, scanned them while suppressing a laugh. “Um, toys. Your toys obviously!” I said, a little too forcibly.

“And the smoke detectors, to keep us all safe”.

“Smoke detectors take 9-volt batteries” said Trudi-with-an-I, a little too smugly. I tried staring her down, to regain the upper hand, but there was no fooling anyone. She knew that I knew that she knew what was really going on.

I paid and skulked out with my jumbo pack.

Once home, and ready, I tried replacing the batteries but they were stuck and I couldn’t get the dead ones out. I tried tweezers, gently tapping it on my bedside table and sitting there sadly reflecting on what I’ve become.

Then, a stroke of genius – I could google “batteries stuck in torch” for ideas. One suggestion kept referring to it as “batteries stuck in your device;” they clearly saw through my lies.

Another suggested posting the thing to Duracell who will apparently replace whatever is ruined by corroding batteries. I was pretty tipsy by then and couldn’t stop giggling at the thought of this. Special shout-out to the poor person at Duracell whose job this is. I wonder how many vibrators you’ve received by drunk, frustrated women.

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I finally found a helpful post that suggested hitting the closed end of the “torch” hard on a surface to dislodge the batteries. This worked, but sadly my favourite ever vibrator was dead to the world. Un-revivable. Gone.

After another wine I ordered a new one, choosing the most popular, and obviously paid a fortune for next day shipping.

Then I went to sleep disappointed. Again.

Fast forward to the next night. Gleefully ripping open the new box and its “discreet packaging”, I opened the box. WTF did I order?

Now, here’s the thing, I believe that vibrators should be shaped like penises. Because I’m kind of old fashioned like that.

This one was not, and it actually looked like a taser. After reading the instructions I learned you are supposed to put the pointy things on either side of your clitoris, hold the handle (trigger mechanism), and….tase yourself.

Since when did you need an engineering degree to masturbate? I needed more wine.

Once sufficiently drunk, I tased myself.

Look, it was okay. And maybe if I was younger, if I had more time and more patience it would do. But it wasn’t great.

I jumped back online and bought myself another trusty bullet vibrator. Small, powerful and quiet, I’m yet to meet something new that can replace it.

I also ordered a bulk pack of batteries to go with it.

It turns out I did learn something this week.

The feature image used is a stock photo.