I was getting cramps and my husband was away for the night. I knew he would feel terrible that he missed going to the store to buy tampons and chocolate almond milk for me. It’s the highlight of his month.
So I loaded our four kids into the car and drove to the store to buy tampons and chocolate milk for myself. Even after years of having to buy tampons, I still hate buying them. When people see my husband buying tampons and chocolate, they think he’s a white knight, or at least husband of the year. When people see a woman buying tampons, they start thinking they should be careful around you — in case you have a loaded gun. That’s ridiculous.
Besides, I have four children, so on most days, I have more patience than most people in the world. I was the epitome of patience as I put my baby and toddler into the grocery cart. My 12 year-old and 7 year-old walked next to it.
But things started happening. My children started begging for everything in the store, which made me want to pull my own hair out. Then my 12 year-old grabbed a stuffed dog toy off the shelf and whacked his 7 year-old brother in the head with it. Then my toddler didn’t want to stay in the cart. Then my 7 year-old tried to ride on the side of the cart. I asked him to stop. He did it again. Five more times. By the time we got up to the register, I was screeching at him to get off the side of the cart before it tipped over. As I set my tampons and chocolate milk on the counter to pay, I knew the checkout clerk was eyeing the tampons and wondering if I had a gun. It didn’t matter that my son had actually done something annoying and dangerous six times and I finally had to raise my voice at him. I was the crazy PMS lady — better ring her up as fast as possible and get her out of the store…
I’m not sure why my children were doing all these things to drive me nuts. They’re usually wonderful at the store… or do I usually have more patience?
Once, a couple of months ago, my 12 year-old thought he was being kind and said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I know you’re just having your grouchy time.” I don’t know what he was talking about. I don’t have a grouchy time.
My evening got much better as soon as I put all the kids to bed and sat down to watch one of my shows with a 130 calorie Raspberry Cheesecake Jello dessert. I may have had three of them and the caloric content may have been closer to 400. My favorite show was a rerun, which made me angry at ABC. Can’t they make one new show a week?! Is it that hard?! Then my husband texted me something about needing to discuss the budget for our upcoming snowboarding trip soon. That really made steam come out of my ears! Why does my husband always want to discuss budgets?! He was really lucky he wasn’t at home. This lady might have a gun. I was out of Raspberry Cheesecake Jello desserts, but thank goodness there was plenty of chocolate almond milk left!
For the record… this time of the month doesn’t affect me whatsoever.
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