I’m 41, and I did have a belt for my pads when I was 12, because that was what my mom still did. She didn’t switch until stores quit carrying the Kotex belted pads.

I was just reading about Judy Blume last week on Wikipedia. The entry on “Margaret” includes this note:

[Pre-teen issues such as] …coping with belted sanitary napkins (changed to adhesive sanitary pads for the 2006 edition of the book)…

Heidi, hee. I realised I’d never seen a belt, so I looked ‘em up, and gah! They all look like implements of torture.

I used to read those SVH books, I had dozens, which have all since been sold to second-hand bookstores. There was also a sweet valley kids and sweet valley university, and a Sweet Valley board game, http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/6563, which I owned.

I also remember how the first 3-4 pages of each book were the exact same thing. Blah blah Jessica and Elizabeth are beautiful, golden, sun-kissed California twins, blah blah Jessica is the bad twin, Elizabeth is the good twin, blah blah.

You can read recaps of all the SVH books on the LJ group 1bruce1. http://community.livejournal.com/1bruce1

Good times.