Post-menstrual

I've decided I'd like to coin a new term: "post-menstrual." It's the period after the period in which a women continues functioning in a crazed dementia which has previously been a characteristic of many women preceding and during the period. In short, its another excuse for bitchiness.

Last week, I was pre-menstrual. Which means I was impossible to please or be around. For example, a characteristic response to the statement, "It's Tuesday," might be, "Okay. So what's your point? What are you, a freekin' calendar genius?!"

Basically, during the pre-period, anyone and anything is a target. The venom is indiscriminate, and it is released randomly on the public.

Some women experience relief once the period starts. I seem to become more agitated. And that feeling doesn't subside until a few days after the period stops. So for those few days after the period, until my mind and emotions return to the state that rational beings enjoy, I would now like to be labeled "post-menstrual."

Yesterday, my mother wanted to put the television and DVD player in the room where my kids are sleeping during our stay here. I came unglued. "Mom, what are you doing?! Stop! Stop!! I appreciate the fact that you are trying to be the wonderful grandmother that you are, but I don't allow my children to watch TV in their room! Just put it down!" Post-menstrual tirade.

Today, daughter two was looking for the remnants of the piñata that was destroyed last week for daughter three's birthday party. [Aside: can anyone believe that I would endure a piñata bashing while I was pre-menstrual? Miraculously, I held my outbursts in check.] "It's in the trash," I replied calmly. Then daughter two went into a diatribe regarding why she needed the tissue paper from the piñata, "No, see we need it because..." I stopped her with, "No, see, you don't understand. It's in the trash. The TRASH! What do you want me to do about that? What don't you understand here? It's gone. No reasoning you can give me about why you need it is going to bring the pieces of the piñata back from the county incinerator."

With wide eyes, she stood and stared at me for a while wondering what just happened.

It was a totally unnecessary rant. Post-menstrual.

So there you have it. Once again, American women have another excuse to not accept responsibility for bad behavior. "It's not my fault. My period made me do it. Oh, not the pre-period. Not the period. It's the post-period that's to blame."

Drug companies will be all over this idea. And now I only have one week out of the month left to try to account for my crankiness.