by Tami Coxen
Just when my life is zippity doo-dah’ing along, the reality of womanhood drops Mr. Icky in my lap.
When Mr. Icky first visited me, my mom said, “Oh Hon, you’re a woman now!”
Yeah. Hurrah. Someone give me a flag to wave.
It is a fact of life every woman has to deal with. It is also a fact of life that every man has to live with. Every man. If it’s not your mate, it’s your sister, your daughter, or your mother. There is no escape.
Here’s my theory: PMS is God’s monthly payment plan for men to compensate for the fact that only women have to endure labor. I think he’s trying to share the wealth and even the odds.
We women don’t get a break of course because Eve had to give Adam that stupid apple. So we have to suffer through something that resembles a werewolf on a bad fur day. Men look on in horror as we do everything from cry for absolutely no reason they can figure out, to howling at the moon. Better yet, they get to live with us while we ingest anything that has the name Hershey on it and then scream in rage over our jeans having gap-osis.
The worst thing is they have no idea when their sweet darlings are going to transform. It’s like a fright movie. DON’T open the door! DON’T turn around! DON’T ask her what’s wrong! The scariest thing is that we have no idea what will set us off, so we can’t warn you. It could be that gap-osis thing. It could be that we’re out of fat-free cream cheese for our bagel. Horror of horrors, it could be a bad hair day on TOP of PMS. In that case take a cab out of the country. Pick up the phone and ask for the next opening on the space shuttle because it will only get worse.
Men don’t know what to say that will help. They don’t realize there is nothing they can say. They’ve never been through it and they’ll never go through it. Women are eternally pissed at you over that little fact. It’s not your fault. That’s entirely beside the point. We at the mercy of hormones that don’t deal in logic. There is no correct response you can make to a statement like this from the woman in your life:
“LOOK AT THIS! MY FACE IS ONE BIG ZIT!”
If you disagree and tell her how lovely she is, you will be branded a liar and blind to boot. If you agree…well I hope your insurance premium is paid up. I will give you a warning. Silence is taken as agreement. You can’t take that route either. Basically you’re wrong, you’re doomed, and you should die a painful death.
My personal modus operandus when Mr. Icky makes his monthly house call is to have the chocolate DT’s. I’m convinced my ovaries will implode if I don’t have a Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Chunk. So I indulge and eye my husband for the slightest sign of disapproval. If he so much as raises an eyebrow at something on the evening news, I go into defense mode.
“So you think I’m fat do you? I really shouldn’t eat this! Is that what your saying?”
He’s sunk. My fuse — short to begin — with becomes non-existent. In the aftermath of massive yelling and histrionics, I dissolve into remorseful sobs. Thus begins the crying jags. I well up at anything at all. Commercials, songs on the radio, or water weight. They all cause me to unravel. My tear ducts are singing “Cry me a River” while my husband looks on helplessly and hands me tissues.
PMS is the ultimate abomination. Comedians do monologues on it. Women dread it. Men live in fear of it and don’t draw a peaceful breath until the tidal wave of insane emotionalism recedes. The moon wanes and their beloved females begin to resemble themselves again and the world goes zippity doo-da’ing along again.
Until next month…MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Tami Coxen
Used permission of the author.
All rights reserved.
Author’s 1999 Bio:
Tami Coxen (email) is an ex-hairstylist being raised by two sons, a husband and a dog in West Virginia. She writes a weekly humor column for her local paper. Her work has been published in ezines such as Jackhammer, eMag, and The "M" Word: Parenting zine. For more of her rambles and rants, please visit Tamara’s Attic.
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Pammy, the main character in the 
Many of those 
Editor of The Blue Rose Bouquet since 1998 and a professional writer since 1984,