Perpetual Misery Syndrome

What do you call that period of time between when you actually have your period and the 2 weeks of faceless murderous rage that is PMS? Oh yeah, that's right: a day.

I've got one good day a month in me, people. On that one day, I am not a puffy sausage, my skin is not a topographical map of the Galapagos islands, my thighs are not unbaked loaves of rye bread, I'm energetic, I don't want to hurl elderly drivers into the outer reaches of the solar system, and, you know, I just don't need that extra piece of chocolate. One day. One glorious, wonderful day.

Today is not that day. How is it that the number of encounters with idiot drivers, brainless clients, telemarketers, and bad t.v. programming increases in direct and equal proportion to your level of PMS? And why is this phenomenon not the main preoccupation of all scientists, everywhere?

I remember my aunt telling us this story about her PMS. She would walk into the living room and her husband would be innocently sitting there, watching t.v., and she'd want to walk over to him and knock over his easy-chair . Not violently or anything. Just waltz up to him, smile maniacally, ask him in a crazy high-pitched squeal if he was enjoying the hockey game, and quietly flip over his chair . With him still in it.

What is PMS anyways? (Please don't answer that literally--I'm PMSing and that would really annoy me.) Is it some bizarre genetic throw-back designed to keep males--and everyone else--away for the sketchy period between ovulation and menstruation (sorry guys, I said the M-word)? You know, to make sure the egg implants and stuff?

To get some answers, I visited the Web site of the U.K.'s NAPS--National Association for Premenstrual Syndrome. NAPS. That's kinda funny. Anyhow, the bottom line is this: don't visit PMS sites when you have PMS. They will enrage you, like everything else.

So then I thought it might be a better idea to search out stories. Stories about PMS. Stories I could relate to. Stories to heal me. Did you know that there's actually an entire Web site devoted to PMS stories? Good God. Here are a few of their story summaries:

“When my husband came back he was surprised to see that I bought new bedroom furniture. He wanted to know how I paid for it. I had to break it to him that I sold his truck and his dog.”

“ . . . she slammed the trunk on me and drove about five miles down the road hitting every speed bump and pothole she could find.”

The site also features: a woman who shaved her husband's genitals and then poured tobasco sauce on them, while he was sleeping (inexplicably, the story is written by the husband, and he seems to get a kick out of it). A woman who burned all of her husband's clothes in the wood stove when he commanded her to have his laundry done by the end of the day (it wouldn't take PMS for me to do that). The woman who fed Ex-Lax to her unwitting ex-boyfriend just before he went on stage with his band.

Geez. I thought I was bad for speaking to the dog in an angry tone of voice.

I feel better already.