(Men are Jerks) AND...Women are Hormonal

We are. Face it ladies. Even when we're not hormonal, we could be. I fought this thought for years and years and even tried to hide the fact that anything during the month had changed. Guess what? It doesn't work. Ask Bill, he knows. In fact, Bill was the one that caught onto the mood swings and PMS before I did and he learned to act (or react) accordingly. What does "accordingly" mean? When I would go on a rage, say mean or hurtful things, cry uncontrollably for no apparent reason, take offense to something really stupid, or just give up for a day, Bill wouldn't blink an eye and he definitely wouldn't point out what time of the month it was. That folks, is why Bill is not a jerk (to me).

So then you'd think, being pregnant, that the hormonal issues might go away for a bit. Maybe they did, for me, but they were replaced by sick, puking feelings, and heaving up stomach acid every morning for 3 months. Nice visual there, huh? Sorry about that. But seriously (!), is that really a fair trade? I think NOT. Then we move onto the late fourth and fifth month when things should be great. Nope, no mercy here folks. I'm not going into details, but let's just say that this summer has sucked (minus a few brief interludes of fun times), and it's hot. Now, I'm headed into the third trimester and this is when, for me, the emotions kick my butt. I take everything personally (probably because I'm getting enormous and am very self conscious about it), cry at the drop of anything, and try really hard not to lash out at anyone but then go into a deep guilt trip once I do. I'd say that's just me, but I've heard reports that this is pretty standard. We all just deal with it differently. But I digress...

Pregnancy doesn't help the hormone front. In fact, it just increases the emotional turmoil going on inside of a woman. It's chaos I tell ya, pure chaos. Most men know this because to see a pregnant woman crying because her lemonade split is not a big deal to them. They understand that hormone clause, but they don't apply that transitive property that we discussed in the "men are jerks" post. Let's try to figure out that equation: IF women are hormonal, AND your hormones temporarily disengage all rational thinking, AND it takes rational thinking to act properly, THEN a hormonal woman is temporarily unable to think and act rationally. Did we all follow that, or were there one too many steps there? If you are a woman and followed that, you are probably not hormonal right now. If you are a man and followed that, bravo (!), you might not need as many jerk cards as you think. Well, you might still need the cards because you really need to apply that theory to make it work in your favor. You need to apply it ALL the time, with ALL women. Most of you figure out how to apply it to your wives (eventually!), but you really have to work it across the board with all women to stay off jerk status. Some of you do this through avoidance (Dave!), which tends to work, in most cases. If we have a (non-jerk) husband or someone else to turn to then we're fine. I think this is where "Girls Night Out" originated. It probably began with a bunch of newlywed women with husbands that hadn't figured them out yet and they all got together to sympathize with each other. But I digressed, again...

Monthly cycles can be brutal and pregnancy doesn't help, so then we have post-pregnancy right? Wrong again, my friends! Some women have postpartum depression, which I have fortunately avoided so I can't really go into detail on that one, thankfully. Then there's nursing. Yes, beautiful nursing... the special bond between mother and child that again, can bring a tear to their mother's eye. I've enjoyed every minute of that time with my children, even the moments when they bite and I want to pitch them across the room. But again, let's be honest here... there comes a point when you say to yourself, "I just want my body back!!!" That body that nobody was reliant on for food. That body that didn't gain 50 pounds to carry the kid. That body that didn't ever fully recover from the last pregnancy, or the last pregnancy, or the pregnancy before that. A few weeks ago my friend was saying how unfair it was that her husband had basically the same body he did when he was in high school, he just grew into it and developed more muscles, and that he could probably continue to have the same body for as long as he wanted. True, oh so true. If they work at it, men really only have their own metabolism against them, right? What do we have? Metabolism, bleeding, nursing children, night-time wakings (which leads to sleep deprivation), necessary weight gain for a healthy baby, etc. Oh, look at that, I digressed, AGAIN (!)...

So "Aunt Flo" is not helpful, pregnancy doesn't fix everything, breast-feeding has it's ups and downs, so we think ahead to the day when all of that is behind us. NO WAY!!! Menopause (!), are you kidding me? I'm not even going there. But let's imagine, for a moment, that you get through menopause without too much emotional scarring, next comes osteoporosis. Oh joy. Brittle bones and the constant fear that you will fall and break a hip. Yep, I think I'll stick with my hormones, thank you very much.

Now the logical man brain is thinking that this is all just a big problem to be solved. Stop just a minute now and remember that you are all jerks! You can't fix us because we're not broken. Stop trying to come up with ridiculous pills and potions and shots that you think you're doing to save us from ourselves but we really know is for your own benefit. And what about natural remedies? Sure they work, and then they don't, and then you have to figure out the other one that works, and then it doesn't. Drink milk to avoid osteoporosis. Oh yeah, except for the years that you can't because dairy makes your nursing infants spit up your breast milk. (And who do I have to thank for that one? Yep, Bill, a man...he and Billy both had a milk intolerance as babies, so it's clear to me that that gene came from him) So you switch to soy milk which ups your estrogen levels and screws with your hormones again. Yeah, yeah, rice milk, almond milk...blah, blah, blah...who has time to figure all this out. Really!?! Because once you find something that works for you it either stops working, or the FDA declares it unsafe and takes it away, or someone in your family becomes allergic to it. I'm sure I digressed here again, but let's face it, I think I've forgotten what this post is about anyway. Oh yeah...

Women are hormonal.

and (back to the original point)

Men are jerks.

Men are jerks because they don't have to deal with any of this. They get to go to work and tune into a different channel for a while. Yes, I sympathize, because it is work and it is responsibility. I support that and try to respect your time at work. I let you opt out of my crying phone calls and pathetic emails when I'm down. I don't call you in the middle of one of your children's fits and have you deal with it. I try to do that without you and, when I can't, I pull the "just wait 'til your father gets home" line and go cry and scream in the laundry room, far away from the eyes and ears of the cause of the problem. And then, in the end, I'm sorry for everything. I'm even sorry for calling you a jerk and for one second wishing we could switch places. I really don't want that. Being a woman can really be a joy and I think being a man must really suck sometimes.

Now, do you really think that any man hung in there to the end of this post? Who am I kidding, they stopped reading at the word "hormonal", am I right? I want to dare them to comment, but instead of doing that I'll give them a free jerk card and end with another math question (and I'll disguise it in words so that I'll know if they just jumped to the end, looking for letters and numbers). Name the theorum: 'a' squared plus 'b' squared equals 'c' squared. That's all I've got. I remember it because I was able to use it while working at the hardware store, with a bunch of men. I think that was when I determined that all men are jerks, I just haven't admitted it until now. Now that I'm openly hormonal.