That, for
me, has been the miracle of menopause. The only significant symptom I had prior
to its (relatively early) onset was a few years of alarming hot sweats, but
even those were perfectly handleable: they gave my friends and kids something
to laugh at, and I don’t actually really mind being hot.
So when, on
Sunday, some dude came knocking at my door asking for my old gold and silver
(because I have a lot of that just, you know, lying around), and I experienced
the kind of screaming rage that quite honestly would get most people sectioned,
I didn’t think for a moment I was premenstrual. Why would I? I haven’t had a period for well over a year.
Once my
heart rate had returned to normal and I’d coaxed all the animals back up from the
bottom of the garden, I thought to myself, ‘Gosh, Trace, that was a bit extreme.
Poor man!’ I laughed a bit (guiltily) at the memory of the whites of his eyes
as he backed away from the front door, hands up in self-defence. Then I forgot
about it because I had other things to think about, like the Sunday Times
crosswords.
But then I
read a story in the paper about, oh, I can’t remember, an abused dog or a foetus
left on a rubbish heap or a shack settlement burning to the ground or a family killed
in a car accident or one of those other gazillions of dreadful things that
happen all around us all the time, and which we can’t invest too much emotion
in individually or we’d go stark staring crazy, and I burst into frankly
hysterical tears. I sat at the verandah table and sobbed lavishly, causing my
animals to once again slink away to places where there were no inexplicable outbursts
of inappropriate emotion.
Once I’d
mopped up about a litre of snot and hung the newspaper out to dry, I thought to
myself, ‘Gosh, Trace, that was a bit extreme! Pull yourself together!’ I laughed
a bit (embarrassedly) and thanked god I didn’t have people over for lunch. Then
I forgot about it because I had other Sunday-type things to do, like tending of
plants and perusals of books and cleanings-out of the tupperware cupboard.
But then I:
• stubbed
my baby toe, with eye-squinching, brain-starring agony, on a stool, something I
haven’t done in (oh!) about 18 months;
• dropped a
single tupperware container five times while just trying to put it on the goddamn
kitchen counter;
• couldn’t get
the faaahking total of tupperware bottoms and tops to match, even though I went
through the whole process of matching them all about eight times, and threw
away about a ton of each in the process;
•
inadvertently pulled over a pot plant while trying to reposition it to get more
sun, spreading black soil all over the living room;
• not only
simply dropped a glass, but actually smashed it spectacularly against the
fridge door while trying to hold it and extract a bottle of orange juice at the
same time; and
• while
trying to hang out a load of clean washing, stepped in dogshit, hit my head on
the whirligig laundry line, tore a pair of beloved pants and fell over a bloody
fucking cat.
‘Gosh!’ I
thought to myself, putting a plaster on my toe and my head, sweeping up glass and
soil, and apologising to the cat, ‘if I didn’t know better, I’d think I was
premenstrual!’
By Sunday
evening I’d developed two zits so vivid in hue and so painful in location (outer
nostril and inner eyebrow) that I felt I should be either displayed in an art
gallery or admitted to an operating theatre. Also: my boobs were sore, my eyes
were scratchy, I had a metallic taste in my mouth, and I had such an intense
chocolate craving that I sucked the coatings off an open packet of
long-abandoned (and rather fluffy) chocolate-covered raisins that some sadistic
person had given my kids for Christmas. It took me about 2 hours and I estimate
the total amount of chocolate ingested was the equivalent of 2 squares of a
Cadbury’s bar. But it was worth it, okay?!
I was –
understandably, I think – completely exhausted by Sunday night, and craving
sleep. But I couldn’t. I lay awake, brain buzzing, body all angles, boobs
aching, legs twitching, arms just all over the bloody place, pillow being damned
uncomfortable, duvet bunched up then thrown off then dragged on then fluffed
out then…. aaaaarggghghgghg!
And on
Monday morning, when my first job of the day was to wash all my bed linen and
scrub my mattress (and my second was to hotfoot it to the metropolis of
Malmesbury for a stock of tampons and pads), I realised that my hormones had, over
a year after apparently dying a dignified death, come back to bite me in the ass.
Bastards.
Having had
so much time period-free, I must say that it is an absolute amazement to me how
many women get through their entire reproductive lives without killing anyone. And
if you’re a man, next time you tell that* joke, don’t be surprised if
you end up with an axe in your head**.
** The
other joke. A scientific study has proven that women’s taste in men is affected
by where they are in their menstrual cycle. When they’re ovulating, they’re
likely to be attracted to a man who’s tall and dark, has broad shoulders and a
cleft in his chin, and has gentle eyes and sensitive hands. When they’re
premenstrual, their ideal man is on his knees on a stack of burning girlie
magazines, with an axe in his head and a golf club shoved up his bum.

3 comments:
I lol'd in the very full computer centre of Stellies University when I read this. Honestly. And I did that trying-not-to-laugh-but-ending-up-spraying-snot-on-the-monitor-and-innocent-bystanders thing. Ultimate sexyness.
Made my day. =)
creatio ncoutes
Hahahaha! Very very funny and very very familiar! Sorry about your toe Please keep writing - makes my day!!!
True and funny. I am lucky mine always has only arrived about twice a year but it always catches me out. Once many years ago I was taking part in a 24 hour paddle and running through the Australian bush type experience. Anyway as we were packing the canoe's to get started guess what showed up and of course I had nothing with me. Amazingly the medic kit from an all boys school provided a pad and two tampons but it wasn't really enough. Worst 24 hours of my life and of course I was with a bunch of guys so I couldn't really explain my problem. Fun times. PS if you are interested you have been tagged in my blog.
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