Remember back in high school or college or in the parking lot at your job yesterday how paranoid that weed you smoked made you feel?

Me either.  I didn’t smoke weed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know about paranoia.  Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff once walked directly behind me for thirty seconds and I knew he could tell I was a liberal just by looking at my ass.

These days I’m out of control and think everyone’s out to get me.  Not because I’m doing drugs or drinking, but because I’m going through menopause.  After a particularly disturbing incident, I looked up the symptoms and discovered there are 27 of them.  I’m writing this so I can stick it on the refrigerator door for my boyfriend, Richard the Remote Control Terrorist to read EVERY FUCKING DAY.

Here are some of the symptoms and how they are affecting a once sane woman.  That would be me, people.  Jeez, a bunch of comedians.

HOT FLASHES

These are wonderful, especially for someone whose favorite temperature is 20 degrees.  It feels like a pot of boiling water filled with pissed off fire ants is sloshing through my veins.  Add to the mix the fact that this summer the temperature in Texas has reached 100 degrees or above over 55 times!   Sometimes I take off my shirt, stand on a footstool and stick my tits in the freezer.  If only I could take my freezer to work.

NIGHT SWEATS

You’d think the moisture from the night sweats would cool off the hot flashes, but it doesn’t work that way.  Anyone suffering from hypothermia is welcome to crawl into bed with me.

IRREGULAR MENSTRUAL CYCLES

I’ve only had my period four times in the last two years.  I know what you’re thinking.  So, what’s the problem you whining bitch?  The problem is that being menopausal is WORSE than having a period.  It’s really beginning to piss me off and I need someone to blame. I’m looking at you collectively, men.

LOSS OF LIBIDO

Good.  Now Richard will know I’m NOT MAKING IT UP!  I’m less interested in sex than I am in poodle grooming.  And I don’t own a dog.

VAGINAL DRYNESS

I have no idea if I’m suffering from this symptom.  Wouldn’t that involve having the energy to check it out?  It’s not going to happen.

MOOD SWINGS, SUDDEN TEARS

WHY DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP PRESSURING ME TO WRITE ALL THE TIME?  DAMN IT, I JUST WANT TO SIT AROUND AND PLAY VIDEO POKER!

I’m sorry.  I’m a bad person.  Hang on a minute, I need to go grab some toilet tissue to blow my nose.

WHY THE FUCK ARE WE OUT OF TOILET TISSUE?  RICHARD!!!

FATIGUE

I’m so tired.

INCREASE IN FACIAL HAIR

I already look like the bearded lady at the circus, so I’m overjoyed to hear about this symptom.  Now all I can think of is being in a coma in the hospital.  I’ll probably wake up after several years and look like Rip Van Winkle, with a beard down to my knees.  Who wants to volunteer to come to the hospital once a week to shave it for me?  Anyone?

SLEEP DISORDERS

I haven’t had more than four hours sleep in years.  I’m fairly certain I snore louder than ten occupants asleep at a weight loss boot camp.

DIFFICULTY CONCENTRATING, DISORIENTATION, MENTAL CONFUSION

Where am I?

DISTURBING MEMORY LAPSES 

How’s this for a disturbing memory lapse?  A few weeks ago, I attended my grandson Wiley’s third birthday party at one of those theme pizza/games restaurants.  I entered the party room with my plate of pizza and sat across from my son-in-law’s sister, Crystal.  She has three small children and I know all their names.  Pretty sharp, eh?  Where’s the mental confusion in this scenario?  In her lap, she held a beautiful baby who looked to be about eight months old.  He/she wasn’t Crystal’s.  For over a minute, here’s my inner dialogue.

Whose baby is that?  That’s not her baby.  That’s not her brother or sister’s baby.  That’s not the baby of my daughter’s step-brother.  That’s not the baby of my daughter’s co-worker.  Whose baby is that?

Seconds before I asked her whose baby sat in her lap, I snapped.  It was my daughter Nicole’s baby, Denley.  You know.  My grandson.  The one I’d spent a couple of hours with three days before.  Oh, yeah.  THAT baby.

DIZZINESS, LIGHTHEADEDNESS, EPISODES OF LOSS OF BALANCE

This is happening to me and I’m holding on to the faint hope when I go down hard, it will be at work.  If I can land on the sharp edge of a book fixture there’s the possibility I can milk it for some paid time off.  There will be blood.

WEIGHT GAIN

I bought a coconut crème pie for me to devour over the weekend.  Oh, yeah.  And a Dutch apple crumb pie for Richard.  He’s now whining because I’m almost finished with his pie.  I told him I’d arm wrestle him for the crumbs.

INCONTINENCE, ESPECIALLY UPON SNEEZING AND/OR LAUGHING

I walk on a nature trail in the woods in the early evening, the only time the temperature is cool enough (96 degrees) to survive.  As a creepy guy – who might as well have been wearing his Serial Killer identification badge – approached in the distance, I pulled the trigger on my pepper spray to make certain it still worked.  Then I walked right through the mist. Just enough to cause me to sneeze.  Repeatedly.  You get the picture.

SUDDEN BOUTS OF BLOAT

Two minutes ago I watched my stomach expand like the airbags in one of those cars driven into a wall by test crash dummies.

INCREASE IN ALLERGIES

This symptom explains why spiders find me so delicious lately.  I feel like Peter Parker/Spiderman without all the angst.  Hey!  Wait a minute.  Spiderman isn’t going through menopause.  Suck it, Spidey!

CHANGE IN FINGERNAILS – SOFTER, BREAK AND CRACK EASIER

The other day, five of my fingernails snapped off when I clenched my fist to keep from punching out a customer.

CHANGES IN BODY ODOR

What the hell does that mean?  Do I smell better or worse?  Let me guess – I now smell like old ladies in nursing homes.  Or sulfur.

I asked Richard how to spell ‘sulfur’ and he said, “Sulfur?  As in what you’ll be smelling when you’re dead?”

The man still doesn’t get it.  But he will.

BOUTS OF RAPID HEARTBEAT

These days my heart beats faster than my acerbic comments can deflate a penis.

DEPRESSION

I asked Richard to pry me out of the fetal position so I could write this.

ANXIETY, FEELING ILL AT EASE

I’d be more comfortable if everyone didn’t hate me so much.

IRRITABILITY

If that cat jumps in my lap right now…FUCK!  Now how am I supposed to finish this?

HEADACHES 

I’ve always suffered from extremely painful migraines, but now I’m having them once a week and they’re as different from normal migraines as a lit cigarette is from a California wildfire.  No.  A volcano.  No.  The sun.  No.  A white dwarf.  No.  A pulsar.  (Richard’s an astronomy nut.)

FLATULENCE

That’s just great!  And me without a dog.  Luckily, my cat Vegas is famous for her little lapses of judgment.  I’m going to buy her a leash and keep her by my side at all times so I’ll have something to blame.

OSTEOPOROSIS

I’ve heard most times when the elderly fall, it’s caused by the hip breaking, not the fall.  Finally!  A beneficial symptom.  I’m off to audition for one of those commercials where the old lady is on the floor saying, “Help!  I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”  I could use the cash to hire a hit man…I mean…um…to buy a nice house dress.