TOUR DE CRAMPS

A FAVORITE TALE FROM THE WRITERS ROOM.

Here’s a fun fact: Even after you stop getting your period – women still cycle together. That’s right – you don’t even have to own a blood bike anymore to ride off into the crap-set with another girl.
I mean – no one was more excited than me to stop menstruating at the ripe old age of 53 – no one. I was so thrilled at the death of my vagina that I threw it a party and registered at the White Pants Store. But to my chagrin – the joy has been short lived – and all because I sit in a room all day with a vibrant young woman named Janae. Bitch.
It happened slowly at first so I didn’t even realize it. Once a month I’d get ravenous. Then the next week I’d be exhausted. Then the following week I’d be bloated. Now normally this would constitute a typical month in the life of Heidi – or at least – three typical things you can always hear me say – I’m starving, I’m exhausted, I’m fat. In fact – I say those three things so often I should just change my name to that already. But then I realized – these feelings were timed the way my period used to be – you know – where you have that one week a month where you don’t feel like a hungry sweaty gorilla? How is this possible I thought? In the beginning it just seemed like I was still having Phantom Periods. Like a person who’s lost a limb but still feels it? Maybe that’s what my menstrual cycle was going through. Maybe my body missed having a period. Stupid body. But month after month it continued to be there. And that’s when I started doing the math and found out that my 1 + Janae’s 1 = me being fucked. Sure there’s no death scene in my pants at the end of this period piece but I get all the other hideous crap I was so thrilled to be rid of. Just the other morning as I was eating a toasted English muffin with peanut butter, followed by a bowl of berries, followed by half a cronut, followed by two pieces of matzoh with butter, followed by a bag of SunChips – Janae looked over at me with a sad face and said – “Sorry, we’re getting our period.” Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. This is so not fair people and I am here to tell you – I knew God was a dude.
I’m not sure what to do now because I kind of have to go to work everyday and I really like Janae but this is beyond the downside of a job – this is workplace harassment at its worst and I don’t think HR would take kindly to me reporting this behavior. “Uhm, Janae keeps giving me her period.” I don’t know if there’s some kind of workman’s comp claim I can make but I did not wait almost fifty years to finally be rid of something only to get it right back. Nobody asked for the bloody boomerang people!
I’m the kind of person who does not shy away from drastic solutions to fix a problem. I bought a new car when my old one had a flat tire. I cut off my boobs when my shirt buttons wouldn’t close. I quit drinking when I kept falling down. Wait – that last one was probably a good idea, but if this phantom period stuff keeps up I am so taking out my lady parts. Who needs this thing? It doesn’t write, paint, or create anything and the only thing it seems to know how to reproduce is someone else’s period.
For now, I’m going to sit in a hermetically sealed room at work with a microphone and shout my jokes through a speaker box. Maybe if I put my box in a box this long national nightmare will end. Damn you Janae.