"Oh! I'm PMSing!"
Words that bring mysterious relief to women, and abject horror to men. I can't possibly detail the innumerable times I've discovered that the shrieking hell-bitch sitting next to me is merely "PMSing" and felt that special relief that's usually saved for people who find out what their unknown illness is. You know, like the residents of Chernobyl. "Oh, you mean these weeping sores and my shitting blood all week is just radiation sickness? Thank you comrade!"
Now I can relax. She's only PMSing. I won't have to call Ghostbusters or a priest. Thank goodness, I thought that I was really being insulted, ridiculed, yelled at, beaten, and/or accused of various unrelated crimes. Turns out, it was just the ole PMS gettin' froggy. Silly me!
I considered this at length this morning in the shower. It began as a half-assed men vs women kind of thought, and rapidly moved into problem solving construction. Here's the meat of it. Since there is no fairometer to show me the balance of meanness and cruelty (deserved or not) dished out by one sex, due to their particular nature, to the other sex, I am forced to surrender the notion of eliminating the source of the problem and move on to finding an adequate solution for its results. I hope I didn't lose anyone there. If I did, don't worry because we're past the hard part. From here on in it's all coasting.
Recently, I've been focused on a few powerful topics. Responsibility. Respect. Compassion. Sympathy. You've seen some of this in the past posts. Well I'm not going to talk about that stuff. The one useful tidbit I've extracted from all that thinkery was the notion that when you hurt someone, you are the one responsible for removing that hurt as best you can. Let me approach from another, simpler, angle. If you do harm, you should apologize.
Which brings me to my solution. I would like to propose that there be a post-PMS apology ceremony. Ideally it would take the form of redressing the hurt party with the opposite of whatever they endured. If they were yelled at, they should get Austin Power's "zzzzzZZZZipit"s to spend at their discretion. Accusations of random crimes? They get one get-out-of-jail-free card. Didn't they just get yelled at for something they didn't do? That should count against something they actually did do. And so on. Use your imagination.
However, we are not in an ideal world (see all posts below for more evidence), and as such I would be happy enough to see the Post-PMS Ceremony be relegated to a Valentine's Daysey kind of "I like the teddy bear with the 'I couldn't bear to be without you' card" deal. Honestly, it really is the thought that counts.
Post-PMS Ceremony. Think about it.
Posted by Matt at September 23, 2003 01:06 PMrelief? Hardly. While I do agree with most of your points, I do think you shoudl recognize that it is not relief unless you think you are pregnant. The 4 days you spend crying, yelling, seething, confused and unreasonable is followed by 5 days pain that causes you to writhe and moan on the floor, an appetite like a teen boy and let's not forget the blood and uterine walls being expelled from your vagina.
PMS sucks for the woman and those she lashes out at. Moreover, women feel like assholes when they realize that all the insults, beatings and accusations of wrongdoing are really just due to their hormones. We are guilt ridden for days and feel that the next time something comes up in the relationship it will be passed off as feminine hysteria. Christina doesn't believe that PMS is ever something to apologize for..it's like limp dick...it happens to all women sometimes and in particular to me, right now.
Posted by: scratchymonkey at September 23, 2003 04:14 PM