“You’re lucky I don’t have scissors nearby, or I would take them and shred all of your ‘precious’ fucking suits.”

The calm before the storm. The still waters – the clouds gathering before Hurricane Kate comes to town. There are many names for it, but it’s most popular term is PMS. Pre-Menstrual Syndrome…. what a crock of shit. I’m writing this while in bed, miserable and hunched over, and PMS doesn’t even BEGIN to describe it. “Pre-Menstrual Syndrome.” What MAN came up with that term? It’s not a syndrome – it’s fucking torture!!!!! If we really want to be accurate then we should call it “MDM” or “Monthly Demonic Misery”. That seems like a more appropriate description. I am so jealous of women who barely notice their MDM; they simply look at the calendars and think, in a Disney character-like voice, “Oh, birds… look what day it is. Oh well… time to feed the horses.”

Some women are so lucky – they go about their business and everything is great. But for women like myself, we are literally bed-ridden and useless, and I have actually almost been taken to the hospital due to my level of discomfort. Why must we suffer like this every month? Isn’t childbirth enough? Why must we get a monthly reminder that we are powerless against the laws of nature? What does the universe have against us? If I close my eyes and try to imagine what the powers-that-be discussed as they looked down upon us at the beginning of whatever the hell happened that brought us here – gorillas, fish, Adam & Eve, a magic bean, a rock, whatever, I picture it going something like this (translated into English, of course):

“Hey! I have a GREAT idea… let’s make it, so that on any given day, at least 500,000,000 women worldwide are completely miserable and evil! But let’s not stop there…. let’s ALSO make it, so that right before the misery, these women also feel fat, ugly, depressed, and hateful towards the rest of the human race, and then… juuuuust when they think it can’t get any worse – BAM!”

(The rest of the ‘supreme beings’ all clap and chuckle amongst themselves)

“Okay – now if we are going to do this, we have to make sure that we commit, so it’s imperative that we continue this for all eternity. All in favor, say ‘Aye’.”…. and the rest is history.

Now, I can’t speak for other women, but I CAN say with 100% blunt honesty that I am a complete and utter bitch when I have MDM. If my friends want to hang out, I warn them to stay away. If someone upsets me, I let loose on them like a swarm of wasps. But my poor, poor husband. He gets the brunt of it. Every single month…. like clockwork, he and my trainer know to stay as far away from me as possible. I am married to my best friend, but for some reason, we, as humans, take out our frustrations out on the ones we hold closest to our hearts, so I project all of my pain and anger on him. Why can’t I threaten the cashier at CVS? “Bag my candy faster, bitch! I need my Snickers NOW!!!!!!!!”

As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that if I pushed hard enough, horns would pop out of my head, I would grow fangs, wings and a tail, and a pitchfork would magically appear in my hand. I do EVERYTHING in my power on MDM Day to keep my cool around the kids, which usually means I let them watch a movie while I lay on the couch like a zombie, moaning and groaning. “ehhhhhhhhhhhh, ooooooooooooooo, ughhhhhhhhhhh, grrrrrrrrrrrr…….”

Basically, MDM sucks balls – ironic, no? And even with Midol, many of us, myself included, suffer terribly. And then we wake up the next day feeling great – as if the previous day had been nothing more than a 24 hour nightmare…. and then we walk to the restroom, and are reminded, once again, that something much, much larger than ourselves, has a serious problem with women.