Period Piece: Three Charming Menstruation-Related Anecdotes

One day not long after my daughter learned to read, I took her to a movie at a rather old theater. Because that’s probably where they were showing the bargain-priced matinee of whatever boring animated kid movie it was that she had been nagging me about. When the movie was over, Katy woke me up and then followed me to the restroom. After we washed our hands, we realized there were no paper towels, and the hand dryer, useless as they always are, was broken. As I used her shirt to dry my hands, she asked me for a quarter. I thought she wanted to play a video game in the theater’s arcade, so I told her I didn’t have any. Then she pointed at the rusted, vintage maxi-pad machine on the wall and said, “That’s too bad, Mama, ‘cause we can buy napkins from that thing for just 25 cents.” I had to explain that those were not napkins for your hands. She looked at me disapprovingly as if I were talking down to her, which I was. As I searched my mind for an appropriate response to the questions neither of us was ready for, she let me off the hook with, “Let’s go get ice cream.”

Going out in public with my daughter did not get easier. A couple of years later, I made the mistake of taking her to Walmart. I try to avoid that place, but I think I needed to stock up on WD-40 and duct tape. I also try to avoid Walmart restrooms. I live by very few rules, but one of them is: Don’t go potty in public if you can help it, especially at places with questionable clientele. But on this particular day of marathon shopping, I had to bend the rule. So I took Katy with me into a handicapped stall. (The stall itself was not handicapped, but you know what I mean.) I used that one, not only because there was more room for me and a kid, but because one toilet was occupied and another was occupied with a full bowl of a man-sized dump. While we were luxuriating in there with the dirty hand rails, I heard some other women enter the restroom. I hoped none of them was actually handicapped. Then I might feel a little guilty about hogging a toilet. When I realized people were waiting, I tried to hurry. Hurrying is not easy when you have to hover. I’ll admit, I am not such a germophobe that I won’t sit my bare ass down on a public toilet, but I do have standards. And this Walmart restroom did not quite meet my rather low criteria for seatability. So as I hovered over the seat, Katy craned her head down to witness the tampon string I had hanging out of my vajayjay. In front of God and everybody in that Walmart restroom, Katy yelled, “MOM!! There’s a string in your butt! There’s a string in your butt! Get it out!!” I shushed her as I pulled up my pants. “Why didn’t you get it out?” She demanded. “Don’t you feel that string in there?” Again, I scanned my thoughts for an acceptable answer. I couldn’t say that is was not a string, because it was. So I said, “It wasn’t in my butt.” Then I’m sure she figured it was coming out of my pee-hole, and I couldn’t let her go on thinking that, so I said, “It’s in my Tinkerbell. I’ll explain later.” The restroom’s audience seemed less than impressed with the way I handled it. Not even a golf clap. Perhaps they expected a more graphic explanation with proper terminology. Sorry, but I have standards.

Fortunately for Katy, she is not the only one who has tried to embarrass me with this uncomfortable topic. A few years ago, on a business trip to Washington, D.C., I found myself in a hotel gift shop stocking up on two-dollar bottles of water to keep me from drinking the five-dollar ones tempting me in my room. I also tried to discreetly purchase a small box of tampons. [I realize I just split an infinitive there. Poetic license.] As I stood at the register with a few people in line behind me, the clerk (a pretty Indian girl named something like Gupta), held the tampon box up and said (in an unnecessarily loud voice), “I always jus’ use de pads, de Stay-Free, d’jou know?” I nodded politely and hoped she would leave it at that. But NO. As a small crowd gathered in line behind me, she shook the tampon box like a curious child with a wrapped gift and asked, “How do dese work?” I was mortified. I glanced at the folks within earshot, smiled uncomfortably, and quietly said, “Well, you just take the wrapper off and use the applicator and stick it up in there.” (I'm sure I was even gesturing rather lewdly.) I heard some chuckles from those who had been pretending to study the souvenir shot glasses nearby. The clerk huffed with a half-smile and said, “No, no, no. I mean, how good are dey for de job?” At that point I realized she was asking for a quality rating rather than a how-to lesson. “Oh, you meant, how well do they work? Fine, I guess. This isn’t my usual brand, but they get the job done.” She apologized and said that maybe her English “weren’t too good.” (Neither was her command of English grammar.) I reassured her that it was my mistake. Then we shared a brief moment of international female bonding when we both smiled and rolled our eyes as if to say, “Well aren't we just a couple of idiots?” Especially her.

Sometimes I think the only thing regular about me is my period. I’ll cling to that until menopause hits, then find some other bodily function to embarrass myself about.

Landscaping the Nether Regions

Ever since I first had to deal with pubes, I always wanted to keep them under control. I think every woman owes it to herself and her significant (or even insignificant) other(s) to keep the shrubbery from going all disco and hanging down to her knees. With all the nastiness that goes on down there, topping it with a curly bouffant or a puffy ‘fro or even a feathered shag just magnifies any unpleasant poontang activity. Contrary to what the douche commercials used to advertise, it’s not always a fresh summer’s eve in a gardenia garden down there.

This vagina monologue has reminded me of a cute little anecdote borne out of a scrapbooking retreat for only the most mature of women. I thought about sharing this story for possible publication in Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul, but soon realized that (1) They rarely publish stories about pubic hair, and (2) I would give away one of scrapbooking’s most treasured secrets: When otherwise mild-mannered creative women get together, they can seriously talk some trash. About, inter alia, genitalia.

So my girlfriends and I went to this bed and breakfast for a weekend of drinking, er, I mean, crafting family heirlooms. Having arrived first, our group garnered the choice spot on the third floor. A private area with lots of natural light and better chairs. We had no idea that by staking our claim to that area we would engender animosity the likes of which we had not seen since Tom Selleck talked about guns on the Rosie O’Donnell show.

After we got settled, a group of small-town schoolteachers arrived. They were, for the most part, a good 10 to 20 years older than our group. A couple of them clambered up the stairs in hopes of snagging the best room in the house. The look of disappointment on their wrinkled and winded faces portended the crass disrespect we would soon fall victim to. Their clan was stuck on the main floor with poor lighting and rickety chairs. “Snooze you lose, bitches!” We cheered as we high-fived each other.

The main floor housed the common area where we would often be forced to interact with these hags if we needed to use a certain paper cutter or shop for the perfect accent piece for our likely-to-be-wine-stained books of family treasures. On one particular occasion, my friend Kathy was there minding her own business cutting some no doubt lovely textured card stock. I descended the stairs to get something and overheard one of the bitches tell the others, “No not this bleached blonde, one of the others.” Kathy overheard this and thought, “Oh noooo she did-n’t. This lady has no idea who she is dealing with.” I turned to the perpetrator and asked, “Can I help you?” She lowered her glasses down her nose to get a better look at me and said, “Tell me somethin’ hon, when you bleach your hair, do you do a little batch for the snatch?” I did not hesitate to respond, “Of course. With all the videos and photo shoots I do, I need my snatch to match. You should have noticed last night when you were doing my bikini wax. Is there anything I can get y’all from upstairs, like some manners?” The ringleader’s gal pals laughed as she said, “I like her.”

So that’s my near-legendary Batch for the Snatch scrapbooking story. It’s also a perfect example of how I like to win friends and influence new admirers. Sometimes a good insult is pure tension-relieving gold.

Anyway, speaking of bikini waxes, I think a good genital-waxing should replace waterboarding as the military’s controversial torture of choice. Of course, being the one forced to smear hot wax on some terrorist’s tangled greasy infested man mound would no doubt be a new cause for any average soldier’s PTSD. Torturer’s mental trauma be damned. Wax those fuckers, I say.

A few years ago, I decided that shaving the nether regions was taking too much valuable time from my otherwise busy and generally productive day. I had always had my eyebrows waxed with little to no pain, so I thought I could handle putting my dainty vulva through the same process. I made an appointment with a stocky German woman a friend had recommended. She asked me what kind of wax job I wanted. Since “Brazilian” was the only kind I had heard of, that’s what I made the mistake of asking for. She guided me into the procedure chamber that was cleverly disguised as a peaceful spa enclave with a massage table in it. I assumed she would leave me alone to undress, but no. She proceeded to take a seat in the rattan chair in the corner and wait for me to get naked. I felt not a little awkward disrobing as Helga watched in bored exasperation. She then ordered me up on the table. I felt like I was starring in a fetish film. (Not that I have ever seen any, mind you. Really.) Before I knew it, my lady parts were being bathed in hot wax. My pubes were then ripped from my crotch with all the grace of a rugby scrum. Every last pube. Every single hint of a pube. Even future pubes were aborted. I knew that my stuff would never be the same and that naked I would look like an overgown six-year-old for at least a month.

I decided to try to keep the Brazilian a secret at least until the redness subsided. Father’s Day was coming up so I thought if I were stealthy enough, I could surprise my husband with it as a gift in case I forgot to get him a card. The day after the bush brutality, I went with the family to look at land. We had been planning to buy a lot in the country and build a house on it, so our weekends had been taken over with nature walks on for-sale properties all over the county. My husband searched for a good homesite area while our kids scouted the best treehouse trees. As my poor fortune would have it, I found myself needing to pee so bad I was crying yellow tears. With my family scattered across three acres, I saw fit to squat behind a bush (no pun intended) to relieve a little pressure. Of course, as soon as I exposed myself in broad daylight, my husband’s naked-wife-radar started chirping its alert siren that only he can hear. Sort of like a dog whistle for deprived men. As I broke the seal on my bladder and wondered if I could get it completely emptied in one sitting, there he stood. I did not realize how flexible he was until that day. He folded himself in half at the hips and craned his head unnaturally to see what was left of my hoo-ha. “Are you . . . BALD?!” he asked. From my weak squat, I looked up guiltily and muttered, “This isn’t exactly the big reveal I had in mind.” Before I could pull up my shorts, he had the kids buckled into the truck and ready to go home. As if the physical pain wasn’t bad enough, now I had mental anguish to deal with as well.

And it only got worse. A few days later, my daughter (who was probably five years old at the time) wandered into the bathroom as I bathed in our open shower. Before I could turn away, she yelled, “Mama! What happened? Your Tinkerbell looks just like mine!” Never again, I thought. Bring back the bush, I begged. A few weeks later, I found myself in be-careful-what-you-wish-for mode. The only thing as uncomfortable as the hairs being ripped out was the experience of the timid and traumatized hairs attempting to re-emerge. For the first time, I think I may have had some understanding of jock itch. Maybe I’m too sensitive down there, but that waxing and all the trouble it brought was more painful than childbirth. I would only do it again with an epidural.

One might think that the Brazilian experience would make me swear off removal of unsightly hair, but one would be mistaken. After the bravest pubes grew back, I was ready to try a new deforestation measure. That’s when I decided to see what laser could do for my nether regions. I made an appointment at the local laser hair removal “salon.” These places are like a hybrid hair studio/doctor’s office. Like a medical clinic with aromatherapy. A spa with needles. I signed in and filled out all this paperwork and these medical history questionnaires as if I were preparing to donate a kidney. Then as I waited for my name to be called, I perused a three-ring binder of drawings meant to depict their various service offerings. Of course, I could have had my armpits or upper lip done, but shaving my pits has never been much of a burden, and I don’t have a mustache yet. I considered having my legs done, but thought I would use my beaver as guinea pig first. In the tastefully-titled “Bikini Area” section of the menu book, there were diagrams of assorted shapes one might have their hedges trimmed into. There was, for example, the Wedge, the Mini-Wedge, the Heart, the Landing Strip, the Hitler, the Soul Patch, the Cabbage Patch, the Groucho, the Fu Manchu, the Cornrows, the Dreadlocks, the Smiley Face, the “Your Boyfriend Was Here,” and of course “Slippery When Wet.” Words cost extra, obviously. I decided to go with the tasteful yet trendy Landing Strip for my maiden voyage.

My name was called and I nervously approached the perky young assistant who would guide me to a “treatment room” where I would wait for an “aesthetician” to “prep” me. I was instructed to undress from the waist down and cover up with a giant paper cocktail napkin. I sat on the cold vinyl table and tried to decide if I had time to run to the restroom after I had told the guide girl that I didn’t need to go. My mind raced with philosophical thoughts such as: Why am I here? Why do we want to remove a naturally-occurring phenomenon? Why is genital hair a naturally-occurring phenomenon? Is it really a phenomenon or was it one of God’s little jokes? He probably thought, I’ll make these parts really ugly and then cover them up with . . . HAIR! Mmmwahahahahahaaaa! How much am I paying for this? Why didn’t I use the Internet coupon? Now it’s really too late for me to find the restroom. . . .

My philosophy session was interrupted by a rattle at the door. In barged a woman in a white lab coat and another in festive scrubs. I thought, Wow, this is more serious than I thought. Then Lab Coat introduced Festive Scrubs as a student/tech and would I mind if she “observed”? What was I supposed to say? “Sorry, Festive Scrubs, I want to be alone with Lab Coat if you know what I mean.” Having been born without a modesty chip, and having had my ability to feign modesty stripped of me completely after giving birth in a military teaching hospital to an audience the size of a community college, I said, “No problem.”

Lab Coat then had me recline on the table as she pulled what looked to be a purple Sharpie from her pocket. She glanced at my chart’s “Landing Strip” choice and verified that it was indeed my intention to have that shape lasered onto my vulnerable vulva. She took the Sharpie and marked the outer boundaries of the areas to be “treated.” I had no idea that “Bikini Area” encompassed such a vast range of real estate. From the navel to the upper and inner thighs, I was a marked woman. She then instructed Festive Scrubs to “prep” me. “Prepping,” it turns out, is a rough dry shave with a cheap disposable razor. As Festive Scrubs began to insult what was left of my dignity, Lab Coat said, “Wait a minute, her hair is pretty light. I need to see if we should increase the settings.” I was all like, “Excuse me?” Lab Coat took off to get a supervisor. In the meantime, Festive Scrubs explained that the laser zeroes in on the pigment, so the darker the hair, the more effective the laser will be. Great, I thought. Now they’ll have to crank up the zapper so it can see my unwanted hair. I could hear God cackling at me as he rolled his big eyes: “This is what you get for messing with nature, you doofus!” Just as God was about to mock me again, in walked Lab Coat with her supervisor, Badge Ribbon. Badge Ribbon’s nametag sported a red flag with gold lettering that proclaimed her to be an “Aesthetician Supervisor.” As I reclined with a purple perimeter drawn on my abdomen and thighs, half-shaved, Badge Ribbon bent over to get a closer look at my pube pigment. She shook her head at Lab Coat and Festive Scrubs, “This is a tough one. She has some light hair. We should probably set it pretty high, but I want to confirm the numbers. I’ll be right back.” At that, Badge Ribbon left me alone with Lab Coat and Festive Scrubs. We made small talk about the weather and our children while we waited awkwardly for Badge Ribbon to return. After ten minutes that seemed more like an hour and a half, here comes Badge Ribbon with another supervisor. Mind you, my bladder was about to burst at that point. This other supervisor, Sensible Shoes, had to take a look. I never actually saw her shoes as my being splayed out on the table left me no good footwear vantage point, but she looked like the type that would wear sensible shoes. You know, a husky woman with no make-up who might have been described as “handsome” back in the pioneer days. She just looked like a gal who would never waste her time with cute shoes. So anyway, Sensible Shoes examined my beav and concurred with Badge Ribbon. But since Festive Scrubs and Lab Coat were in there too, Sensible Shoes went the extra mile and used me as a teaching opportunity. She manhandled my muff as she showed the three poon gazers what she was talking about. “See,” she offered, “This is what we call an extra light brown. Not as dark as we usually see. The lighter the hair, the harder the machine has to work. Let’s use the highest setting for best results. It may be a little more painful, but we have no choice.” Sensible Shoes gave my pubic bone a reassuring pat as she bid farewell to the party. Badge Ribbon made sure that Lab Coat knew what to do, then took her leave as well. Lab Coat probably enjoyed a bathroom break while Festive Scrubs finished shaving me clean.

After the shave and before the procedure, I finally had a chance to relieve myself. I passed another client in the hall as I scampered barefoot toward the ladies’ room wrapped in the napkin skirt. She must have seen the angst on my face. She said, “The first time is always the worst. You’ll get used to it.” Get used to it? I thought. Was this some sort of cult? As I sat on the toilet and relaxed for a minute, I wished I was anywhere but there. I hadn’t even been lasered yet and I was already discouraged. My pubes were not the right color; I was marked with a purple Sharpie; and my nether region was shaved bald. I was wearing a paper sarong. My purse and keys were in another room. There was no turning back. Suck it up, I told myself. Maybe the worst is over.

I returned to the prep room where Festive (we were on a first-name basis by now) led me to the procedure area. I was placed in something not unlike a dentist’s chair. Oh how I wish I was just getting a root canal with no novocaine, I thought. Lab Coat arrived shortly, clearly anxious to try the machine on its highest setting. We donned the little goggles to protect our eyes from any errant laser beams. I felt like I was in some sort of futuristic porn film. Like Festive was going to put on some mood music and pour me a glass of Champagne before taking off her scrubs to reveal six-inch stilettos and a black leather bustier. Lab Coat would of course tear her eponymous starched white jacket off to show us that she was really an android nymphomaniac with robot laser-guided nipples. These are the kinds of thoughts that plagued me as I was about to be violated. Lab Coat gelled me up and explained that I would feel a tiny sting followed by puffs of cold air to numb the area. She turned on the machine that clattered as loud as a riding lawnmower. (Which ironically, is kind of what it was doing.) Festive watched intently through goggled eyes and, much to my relief, never made a move on me. The pain was soul-scraping, but still not as bad as the wax job that had scarred my psyche a few months earlier. I thought for sure she was about to wrap it up when she announced, “Now I just need to finish your labia.” “Labia?!” I thought. Did she really have to use such a technical term while performing such a barbaric act? It was like kicking a guy in the balls with a steel-toed boot while gently saying, “I’m almost finished sculpting your testes.” So incongruous. Then again, the whole experience was an out-of-body affair.

Festive helped wipe me up as I took the goggles off to see Lab Coat’s handiwork. I beheld the aforementioned Landing Strip surrounded by reddened skin and wondered why I paid so much for the pleasure. Lab Coat handed me an ice pack and explained that the hair might grow back sooner because of the nature of it and that I may need to come back more often for more treatments. I thanked her for her patience with my recalcitrant and inappropriately-colored hair. Sure enough, before long, the fearless fluff began to reappear. Are you kidding me? I asked my defiant crotch. Seriously? But I paid a lot of money and went through pure hell for this. Even a full-body epidural could not have numbed the pain.

So I traded laser for razor and never looked back. But if I ever decide to brave the laser, at least now I know to do a dark little batch for the snatch first.

I Made a C!

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier said: “And a nameless longing filled her breast, - A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.” Who would have thought he was talking about my breasts?

I’m not real big in the tits department. Bigger than mosquito bites or golf balls, but not quite more than a handful. I liken them to medium oranges without the texture or firmness. They’re small enough not to sag, though, so they give the illusion that they’re still perky. And they are fairly far apart. Like neighbors with an empty lot in between. When I lie on my back they’re closer to my armpits than they are to each other. Cosmetic surgery inquiries confirm that no natural looking implants would give me cleavage. That’s how far apart they are. Not that it looks freakish. My chest isn’t that wide to begin with.

Now, I could go into detail about my perfectly-proportioned nipples, lament the fact that I didn’t breastfeed my kids long enough, and go on about why mammograms are more uncomfortable for me than for anyone else, but I won’t. This is not a story about my tits so much as it is about appropriately padding them for display. I can go braless and no one notices unless I get cold. That’s why I need to dress them up.

After years of torturing my titties with ill-fitting bras, usually irregulars I found on the clearance rack at Ross, I decided one day to treat myself to a retail-priced bra or two from a real mall department store. So I gathered up an armload of cute bras I thought might fit. I had always thought I wore a 34B or 36A, so that’s what I was going to try. A salesgirl asked if I needed any help, and as I always do, I said no thanks. No matter where I am or what I need, my first response is always a stupid “No thanks, just looking” even though I am indeed looking for something specific. And even if I’m in a hurry. In fact, especially if I am in a hurry. I don’t need some salesperson slowing me down. Like a man who won’t ask for directions, my pride as a shopper won’t allow me to ask for help. I want the challenge of finding it on my own. I want the uneasiness of continuing to search for something that isn’t there like staring into a refrigerator hoping a meal will materialize. I have to get really desperate or pissed before I’ll ask someone for help and even then, they are rarely all that helpful except maybe after I chase down someone in an orange apron at Home Depot and ask what aisle the A/C filters are on. (Then I can’t ever find the filter size I need or even remember what size I need, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, there I was in the dressing room wishing I was trying on shoes or sunglasses or even swimsuits instead. Each bra was as expensive and uncomfortable as the other. Then I heard a little tap at the dressing room door. It wasn’t the polite knock I might have expected from the twentysomething salesgirl. It sounded more like a weak peck from a bird who wasn’t sure he wanted what he was pecking at. It was only a decibel or two louder than a fingernail scratch on a Formica countertop. Somehow I knew that an old lady had to be behind that sound. Sure enough, I heard the voice of somebody’s leathery grandmother ask, “You all right in there, hon?” While I was far from all right, I was not about to ask for help. I made the mistake of cracking the door open to recite my no-thanks-I’m-just-looking. As I said, my boobs aren’t that big, so that one-inch crack in the door was all grandma needed to see that I had no business trying on bras without her help. Before I knew it, this formerly meek door-scratcher had her gnarled arthritic fingers all over my torso. Mind you, this was not a modesty problem on my part, for I have very little of that. It was simply a personal space issue. When I reject salesperson’s help, it is usually from a safe distance. This gal had bullied her way right into my dressing room and insisted that I accept her help because she was an expert. Indeed, I no longer felt violated when I glanced at her name tag with an official-looking ribbon on it proclaiming Edna to be a Certified Bra Fitter. Show me a badge or buy me a drink, and you are free to fondle my breasts.

She shook her head disapprovingly and said, “Oh honey, these need some help.” Her sharp nails scraped my armpits as she cupped my bare breasts in her veiny wrinkled hands and pulled them toward each other, saying, “You’ve got a lot of good breast tissue here that you’re not making any use of.” I immediately drifted into an out-of-body experience as soon as I felt this strange elderly woman’s paws on my mammaries. “You’re a good C-cup, little lady,” she announced. I then felt like I had won the lottery. I went from creeped out to awestruck in less than 30 seconds. She was my fairy godmother. Her teeth clacked unnaturally as she ordered me to wait right there. Then she ambled off to get me the perfect bra.

While I waited, I gathered up all that breast tissue that I had theretofore thought was just chest fat, and realized that she might very well be right. I could indeed put all that into a bra and call it boobs. She reappeared much sooner than I thought humanly possible, even for someone half her age. I was entranced by the array of C cups hanging from her claws, and could not wait to fill them up with all this newfound breast tissue.

I thought she would leave me alone so I could start trying them on, but no. Another thing I learned about bras is that you have to know how to put one on. After she released the first bra from its hanger like a magician pulling a dove out from under a scarf, I hesitantly took it from her and began to hook it around my waist. Not since giving my last urine specimen had I experienced such performance anxiety. As I twisted it around me and pulled it up, I looked at her like a child taking his first steps. “Is this OK?” I asked. That was all it took for her roll her good eye and manhandle me some more. “Honey, you gotta lean forward and pour that breast tissue into the cups. It ain’t gonna find its way in there on its own.” I did as I was told. As I stood up and looked in the mirror, I felt tears of joy begin to well up in my eyes. Like Dorothy chanting, “There’s no place like home,” I could hear my inner voice shout, “I do have big boobs; I do have big boobs!” Edna looked at me like Michaelangelo must have looked at David and said, “Well, I think my work here is done.”

Mr. Whittier would be glad to know that I probably spent a few hundred dollars on bras that day. Not counting the hefty tip I left in the dressing room.

Thirty-Seven

I wrote this not long after my 37th birthday. Some people have a hard time with 30 or 35 or 40. Those didn’t bother me like 37 did. Thirty-seven was my wake up call. In fact I think I look and feel better now at almost 45 than I did then. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that by the time I hit 37, both of my kids could finally wipe themselves.

I’ve never been good with numbers. When a doctor recently asked my age, the number escaped my mouth just in time to see a betrayed spirit stage a walkout on its body. My inner self is still a “10” in a size five. But on the outside, I’ve become more like a “5” in a size ten. While I was busy clipping coupons or sorting Legos from Lincoln Logs, my chronological age began to exceed the age of my inner hottie. This condition gives me delusions that I’m better looking, thinner, and cooler than I actually am. (Is cool still the word for it?) When did this 22-year-old, 115-pound sex object morph into a flabby, elastic-waistband-wearing ma’am? A girlfriend contracted hers somewhere between mortgage and minivan. I think mine sneaked up on me in an SUV at a Home Depot parking lot. There is no known cure for this insidious disorder, and alcohol intensifies its effects. While it has been known to masquerade as confidence, it can progress to something pathetic if left untreated.

After a trip to Home Depot for a toilet ballcock (that’s what they’re called), where a pierced-eyelidded clerk told me I look like his mom, I headed for more torture at the mall. In the Juniors department, oblivious to the whispered jeers of cheerleaders and sorority girls, clueless that the saleswoman must have hoped I was shopping for my daughter, I tried on a size ‘M’ dress only to find that I’m an ‘S.’ Apparently for Sausage. The dress would’ve been perfect for a Jerry Springer appearance, but unfortunately, my suburban life doesn’t allow for that much deviant behavior. Then I boldly considered thong underwear when I knew full well that I (and my cellulite) would be much safer in a girdle. Who am I to think I can get away with butt floss? I wondered. Why not just move the pantyline down to my thighs with a sturdy foundation apparatus instead? I then decided to go somewhere that made me feel pretty. Like Wal-Mart.

They say the success of Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives made 40 the new 30. (Right. And chartreuse is the new black.) They don’t know desperate. Desperate is struggling over wardrobe choices in hopes that your kids’ babysitter will approve of your outfit. Desperate is when you think you take up a relatively small amount of space until your butt brushes against something you thought you could clear by a good six inches. (Does that mean I need bifocals? Now the marketers call them progressive lenses. Sounds like the kind of folk music I listen to.) Desperate is singing along with Muzak versions of ‘80’s dance hits while browsing the Wal-Mart shoe department. After scoring a pair of slippers from a clearance rack and using a coupon on a new pore-defying skin renewal system, I treated myself to a carwash.

My self-image (positive though it may be) serves me well until I pass my reflection. I’ll catch my face in the window of my SUV and think, Dang, where do I get off thinking I could even approach hotness anymore? Did I just flirt with that cute carwash boy? He knows I’m driving a Suburban with two carseats in it. I’m sure he’s noticed the radio set to my favorite a.m. talk show. Did he see the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons next to the antidepressant prescription I left in the front seat? Did he see the REM’s Greatest Hits and Sarah McLachlan CDs? He wouldn’t care to know that when I was his age I was sexy and cool and wild and that if he were to meet the 20-year-old me in a bar, he would flirt with me and try to ply me with a sufficient number of drinks before offering me a ride home. The sad thing is, I’m having an erotic daydream about someone who could technically be my son while he’s vacuuming french fries from sticky floormats.

Did I forget to mention the short-term memory loss? Is it some age-related obsessive compulsive disorder? I smell my armpits to make sure I put on deodorant. Okay, I did that like two minutes ago. Did I take my vitamin this morning? Did I take my gingko biloba? Apparently not. Have I already had lunch today? If so, what was it? After eating a second lunch at around 2:00, I remember the first one I had at 11:00. Did I turn on the dryer after putting wet clothes in it? That one is embarrassingly verifiable. Did I put my kids in the car? Though I hear them screaming, I have to turn and check.

Is it already too late for me to age gracefully with dignity and class? I might as well prepare my kids now for the kicking and screaming that will ensue when they strongarm me (as they feign assistance with my hesitant gait) through the nursing home doors. I hope to reject any injections or plastic surgery that would no doubt leave me with that Picasso-esque Joan Rivers-drag queen quality that just adds insult to agery. But don’t quote me on that one.

George Bernard Shaw said that youth is wasted on the young. It took me 37 years to get that. No one told me back when I spent hours doing my hair and make-up that I could really use that extra time now. No one told me that one day my body would need more for breakfast than Pepsi, Tic-Tacs, and cigarettes. Or that Ramen noodles and beer for dinner every night could one day destroy my metabolism. No one told me that all that sunbathing would make my neck look more wrinkled and droopy than your average scrotum. No one warned me that all the drugs I did in college would damage brain cells I would so desperately need now. No wait, I think I was warned about that one. Yes, youth was indeed wasted on me. And, ironically, I think I was wasted during a good bit of that youth.

How did this happen? Fourteen years of marriage, two kids, three dress sizes, and I'm still trying to do the math.

Smooth Operator

My grandmother would have called it “female problems.” (Ovarian cyst, really, I think it was.) That’s why I had to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound. It’s not like the standard ultrasound you get when you’re pregnant or have something else growing inside you. It’s a little more invasive and intimate than that.

Do men appreciate the fact that all of their genitalia are on the outside? Absolutely. In fact, “appreciate” is an understatement. It’s a matter of pride. Sure, women have external stuff. When my daughter was a pre-schooler, she called it her Tinkerbell. I found that moniker adorable until, in the middle of a long check-out line at SuperTarget, she grabbed her crotch and screamed like a banshee, “My Tinkerbell is itchy!” Better than vagina, or vulva or for Christ’s sake, labia coming out of a four-year-old’s mouth. I’m all about euphemisms. Kids just don’t need to say words like testicles or clitoris. That’s just inappropriate. I was taught twat and tallywhacker and I turned out okay. For the most part. It’s not like I didn’t know the real words. In fact, I still prefer the slang.

This one time? At a junior high dance? A boy pressed himself against me and for years after that I thought that they were always hard. If they aren’t, I think they always want to be. (They being their peckers.) Unless it would call attention to itself, like while exchanging vows or while getting a legitimate massage or pedicure. I remember thanking God that I wasn’t a boy. How could a person be comfortable carrying something with a mind of its own between their legs all the time?

The problem with female stuff is that at least half of it (or more) is on the inside. And that’s always where the doctors and technicians and boys like to poke around. Seems like there’s always something that wants to get in there. If it’s not a man or a doctor or a tampon, it’s a yeast infection. So anyway, I went in for this procedure. I won’t tell you where this happened so as not to get anyone’s license suspended, but it was a few years ago, and I’m sure the perpetrators are successful upstanding medical professionals today.

I found myself sitting on a paper-covered vinyl examining table in a pathetic excuse for a robe. Not the nice high-thread-count cotton ones with the snaps and the softness of an old sheet. No, this one was made of something akin to a paper towel. I felt like a two-stick Popsicle in a cheap napkin. It came with a sassy so-called belt that I tied in a fashionable knot that I then tilted at a rakish angle. Of course I was cold and nervous, so my shaking rattled this crumply gown. Not since a taffeta bow-butted prom dress had my attire made such a racket. They always give you a good half-hour to change. It took only a few seconds to get out of my clothes, but I was glad to have the remainder of the time to figure out how to unfold and don the glorified Handi-Wipe. I have shopped with kids long enough to be able to grab an outfit, find a dressing room, undress, try it on, and purchase it in less than a fraction of the time they gave me for the luxury of this gowning.

So the cute technician did the little courtesy knock before entering. His name was something like Chad or Justin or some other name popular for boys born around the time I graduated from high school. It was the first time I had been semi-nude and alone with a younger man since my son was a toddler in the shower with me. Because my pregnancies sucked away what little sense of modesty I started with, and because the ensuing childbirths at teaching hospitals managed to destroy my ability to even pretend to be modest, I found myself harboring only an odd sense of this is probably inappropriate and a normal woman might feel uncomfortable. Then the lawyer in me woke up and said, “Dude, isn’t someone else supposed to be in here?” (Yes, I was like 40 and yes, I said Dude. For emphasis, of course.) Then, in a perfect Homer Simpson, he blurted, “D’oh!” and said, “Hang on, Ma’am. I’ll get us a chaperone.” That sounded all kinds of wrong. Ma’am? That really pissed me off. Is that what I amounted to? And chaperone? Like I might molest him? (I bet I could have.) As he left the cold room, I left my feet in the stirrups to be ready for the ride. I tried to relax as I listened to the soft rock of the 80’s, 90’s, and today, that they pipe in all over this unnamed medical facility. I was in the middle of singing along with Chicago’s You’re the Inspiration and remembering my high school sweetheart when I heard another courtesy tap on the door. As if I might have been in the middle of something that I needed to finish up immediately. So in came cute Chad with his adorable supervisor who looked all of 24. He said, “This is Hunter. He’ll be our chaperone for the day.” No amount of eye-rolling or sighing could have communicated my bemused chagrin. Either they really were clueless, or they thought I was. I let it go. As I said, any modesty on my part is predominantly false.

Finally, the procedure could begin. I knew this kind of exam involved some sort of insertion, but no one told me that it would be the insertion of something not unlike an industrial size and strength vibrator. With gloved hands, they lubed me up and shoved it in about as gently as a mechanic handles a dipstick. I could sense their discomfort and I tried to avoid eye contact with either of them, but, in my misguided effort to ease the tension, I joked, “I think this is the first time I’ve been alone and half-naked with two guys probably since college.” They chuckled politely as they eyed each other probably thinking either, What a skank or We should pray for her or both.

As Chad swirled the vibrator in every possible uncomfortable direction at every possible painful angle around my humiliated vagina, the soft rock station began playing Sade’s Smooth Operator. “No need to ask, he’s a smooth operator, smoooooth operator, smooth operator, smoooooth operator. Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago, western male. Across the north and south to Key Largo, love for sale.” I looked at my new boyfriends and smiled. “Perfect background music, right?” I watched them stifle laughter as they probably thought about what they would do when I asked for their numbers. That, and how glad they were to have all their junk on the outside.