"What's P.M.M.?", you ask...

Well, my dear readers, P.M.M. is a little acronym that I have concocted in my little pea-brain to help men understand why women are  clinically insane slightly mental the week before Aunt Flo comes to visit.

Males, I'm sorry, I know this subject matter makes most, if not all of you, want to blow chunks. However, unless you are deciding to live on a secluded island with Gilligan, and kill off Ginger, Mary Ann, and the rich guy's wife (Why does no one knows her name?) then you're going to need some education on matters of menstruation. I promise, I will not get graphic... well, unless I start exaggerating... and there's a pretty good chance that will happen. Anyways, please continue to read until you feel cold sweats overtaking your body, at which point, you should step away from this blog, and go find a cool compress.

P.M.M. stands for Pre Menstrual Madness.

To call what happens to us women, a syndrome, is a little insulting, in my opinion. Only because the word "syndrome" makes most men feel that we can take some kind of magic pill, and our symptoms will disappear. I will reference the popular television sit-com, Everybody Loves Raymond...

Now, don't you men think that if a tiny caplet would solve all of our monthly feminine needs, that the creator of this medicine would have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?! To my knowledge, this pill has not been successfully developed at this point in time.

Let's start at the beginning. Most of the time when girls get their first monthly visit, they are scared, nervous, and embarrassed, among many other emotions that can be very confusing to a pre-teen. I, on the other hand, had an out of the ordinary experience when that day came. I remember the day quite vividly. My family's washer had been broken, so my mother and I were preparing laundry to take to the laundry mat. My mother ordered me to use the restroom, as all mothers do before taking their children on almost any trip that may last for longer than a half of an hour. When I went to pee and discovered my new "development", I screamed at the top of my lungs. Now, for those of you who know me, you know that if I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, folks who live clear on the other side of town are wondering what the fuss is all about. My mom yelled up the stairs and asked why I was screaming. To her surprise, I burst out of the bathroom, grinning from ear to ear. I strut my stuff down our wooden staircase, slid down the banister, jumped about 4 feet into the air and landed by our front door, like I was Mary Catherine Gallagher. 

I exclaimed, "I'M A WOMAN! YIPEE!" And then pranced around the rest of the day, proud of the sanitary napkin I had stuck to the inside of my panties.

Oh, how naive young girls can be.

That was before PMS made my average size boobs feel like they look like this...

And before my back felt like I had been sleeping in a medieval torture device for the past 23 years...

And before my perfectly healthy ovaries felt like a sledge hammer had smashed them to smithereens...

(Don't worry fellas, those are prunes, not real ovaries. But I'm not joking... imagine an organ in your body that feels the way prunes look. Now, do you understand cramps?)

What I would do to go back to the days when I boasted about my period...

Regardless, even through all the trials and tribulations of woman-hood... I'm proud to be a woman. I am not ashamed of my curves, even when I sometimes bruise myself on tables and countertops because I'm not used to the size of my childbearing hips. I like that I get emotionally attached to people and feel the need to nurture those around me. I love wearing heels, even though they make me want to amputate my feet the morning after I wear them.

I remember being in a class during high school and overhearing a conversation between a guy and a girl. The guy was a very light-hearted, fun-loving, happy-go-lucky person and I liked him a lot. The girl had a dark sense of humor, chains hanging from her belt loops, and 3 inches of black eyeliner caked across both eyelids. Needless to say, I never really related to her, with the exception of that afternoon. The boy, noticing she was in a fouler mood than most other days asked her what was the matter. She simply replied, "Well, if you really need to know, I'm bleeding to death." and turned right back around. That was literally the most eloquent and profound statement I have ever heard, in my entire life, hands down.

So, in lieu of her, I am still going to declare that I love being a female, periods and all, and I don't apologize for my bitchy-ness... especially not during the weeks I'm convinced that I'm bleeding to death.

Dear Lazy Shoppers of America

If nothing else, this post will be short and informative. Hope that keeps the majority of you tuned in.

Today, I was running a few errands; you know, shopping for a couple of items that I was in dire need of... i.e. a replacement for the 3rd camera I've managed to break and a replacement for the sunglasses that Lake Erie ate during a vacation trip with my closest girl friends. (Bud Light and Inflatable rafts may or may not have been involved with both incidents, but that is besides the point.) 

Anyways, I was pulling into the store's parking lot, searching for a spot that came directly after the designated handicapped parking areas (because clearly a 23 year old female in the prime of her life, can't risk breaking a sweat from trotting across a blazing-hot, pavemented, hell on earth. Especially when this girl is single. I mean, come on... smelling of body odor in a classy boutique like, I don't know, Wal-Mart, where male models are notoriously lurking, would be entirely too chancy.)

...

So, I'm trying to find prime parking. Most days, this conquest is a failed attempt, and I end up transforming into my alter ego, a white trash ingrid, stereotyping any not-like-me person into the category of horrible drivers and screaming profane words (windows up) insulting the way in which their parents conceived them. **REMINDER** This is my alter-ego... an energy formed from inexplicable anger which I can't control or harness. It's a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde type of deal, ya dig? We've all got them. Don't judge.

However, today, there was no need for Bobby Bill Thorton (that's the alter-ego's name) to come out... because ALAS! A spot was wide open and waiting... no, no, BECKONING... for me to pull on in. 

And so I did! And so it was good.


... until... DUN DUN DUN!

As I began to proceed, the lady parked in the spot in front of me was finishing up unloading her cart into her Lexus. Now, this lady looked as if she had just finished her daily 5k, sporting the tightest of Spandexed running gear, with a half eaten banana in her right hand and a Nalgene bottle full of high quality H20 in her left. At her age (which was probably twice my senior) she looked to be in impeccable health.

I waited to let this fit little woman finish up her unloading and return her cart to the Cart Corral. I looked down to turn the radio station, and as my eyes moved back up to my windshield, I noticed that this exercise-crazed woman was steadying/parking the cart, directly behind her car, to make sure there was no chance it would hit mine, after I parked.

She then got in her car, put it in drive, and sped off.

Now, if this lady weighed in close to 400 pounds, I would have no need for this post, because I would have let that one slide for her. Hell, if she'd weighed 200 pounds I'd even probably give her the benefit of the doubt!

But you cannot tell me, that this 100 pound woman, who probably trained with Lance Armstrong in her hey-day, could not walk a measely 25 feet to return her cart to it's rightful home! Ya just can't, damnit!

Oh, perhaps I'm forgetting to recollect that she obviously had superhuman powers, beyond this world, to stop the wind from blowing so that my car would not get scratched, dinged, or impaled by the wild steal-netted beast on wheels for the duration of my shopping experience. Gee, can't believe I didn't remember that minor detail.

My point is, for the love of God people, PLEASE RETURN YOUR CARTS TO THEIR PROPERLY LABELED DESIGNATED LOCATION! YOU'RE MAKING ME CRAZY!

That is all. Good day.