This is an older one, already published. I’m putting it up here as part of a project where a bunch of facebook writers are linking stuff to create an online mag.
Gentlemen, I think the time has come to put aside our traditional squeamishness and discuss the undiscussable, without disgusting the all too easily disgustable. I think the time has come to grapple with the greatest threat to the dignity and repose of modern man, the modern woman, or to be specific, the pre-menstrual modern woman.
Of all the inconveniences and mortifications heaped upon us since the untaming of the shrews, I would argue that nothing so besets a man as the monthly indignities of PMT. We are the forgotten victims of this scourge, I’m sure you will agree. How were we to know that having been such decent chaps in tipping the nod to all of that liberation jiggery-pokery it would come back to bite us on the collective arse? I don’t mean via female bosses (kinda sexy in a way), or equal pay (kinda convenient when you’re a bit short of the folding stuff yourself), or any of the myriad little compromises we’ve had to make in the name of looking reasonable. After all, we still pretty much have the joint locked down on our terms.
Except for this one, little thing that got away from us.
The pre-menstrual monster.
Can you imagine our hardy pioneer forefathers wilting under the attack of some goggle-eyed harpy with an oestrogen imbalance, alternately screaming and crying and gorging herself on half her body weight in Lindt balls and Homer Hudson? Can you imagine those sturdy Turkish trench attacking lads of Anzac Cove meekly acquiescing to a frenzied shoe shopping spree just to avoid having their eyeballs raked out by a nutjob girlfriend in the throws of premenstrual psychosis?
No, you can’t because they wouldn’t have. And yet your modern guy, assailed once every month by a monster which could out-monster the alien from Aliens, does not dare even utter the entirely reasonable question, “Excuse me, my dear, have you gone insane with PMT again?”
You can imagine the outrage, and the scolding and the government funded postgrad courses in Wymyn’s Studies if the blokes lost their minds like clock work each month and started lashing out at all around them, while scarfing up staggering tonnages of chockies and melting the plastic on frocks which simply do not fit them. We’d never hear the end of it.
But women never hear the start of it? Why?
Well, because it’s potentially dangerous to even raise the topic with them of course, especially when they’re deep into the Madness and thinking seriously about biting your leg off just below the knee. And when they’re not in the Madness they don’t remember anything about being there last time, or at least they claim not to, and so refuse to discuss their most recent tri-state crime spree and the deep psychological scars you’re still sporting from it.
This inequitable my friends, and it cannot stand. I suggest some balance be brought back into these arrangements. If the ladies have decided it is appropriate to give free reign to their inner cave woman once every 28 days, perhaps we gents should be allowed to do the same for our caveman, and, well, go hide in a cave somewhere. Very far away.
Very, very far away.
Or even better, they could go! We could sell it to them as a health spa visit. Once every month. How generous is that?
Just think about it. There’d be no more keeping track of that secret calendar we Never Ever tell them about. No more wondering whether you’re getting your head ripped off because it needed ripping off, or because you’d simply walked into the hormonal equivalent of an exploding super-volcano. Our chocolate stash would no longer be imperilled, nor our dignity, nor any joint bank accounts.
And with that weird, spooky, synchronised period thing they sometimes get going, we could possibly even get rid of them all at once, fire up the TV, chill a few beers, and get together to strip our sleeves and show our scars and laugh about the bad old days when we let these wild animals run free.
Oh, this should be fun…
You may have also noticed they seem to have equally poor recall of that 12-18 hours of screaming and bleeding that constitutes your average labour. Fifteen minutes later: This one’s cute. I want another one. Never mind the fact you now have clinical PTSD and are wishing you were born in the generation that was told by burly midwives at the doors of the delivery room, ‘Fuck off to the pub pal, this is wymyn’s business.’
Hmmm yeah nice article.
But where are the nudey pics?
“we could possibly… get together to strip our sleeves and show our scars”
That reads like you’re comparing suicide attempts.
Little gratuitous shakespeare reference, Lobes.
Geez, JB. Ya went and told them about the secret calendar and the death skull icon stickers we get in pubs …err..hang on… you didn’t actually mention the stickers did you. Oops.
Erm, did anyone ever get the Spice Girls Wank Hat?
- I’ll get me coat
The general reaction of men to PMT is “Whhhhy oh whhhyyyy don’t women have pity on us for having to put up with this interminable monthly devil?! *wail* Where is the sympathy ladies!!! *sob*’ always forgetting that women have to put up with *other women’s* PMT too. Unfortunately, gender doesn’t grant immunity…
(nice writing tho JB)
I have always liked the thought PMT gives women an excuse to act like a lot of men at least once a month.
Hint for you males out there: Husband of the century has the secret answer, he just points and laughs at me, which has me laughing back. Result? No PMT.
Whew
I thought you were going to put up the article from the issue I shelled out for yesterday. I love your gear Birmo, but the rest of the mag is pretty lame and they only give you half a page! I’d be better off buying the Monthly.
JB, ‘the Madness’ as you put it, truly conveys the utter insanity that befalls our partners, mothers and sisters… I, some would say fortunately or indeed unfortunately, grew up in a household that had my grandmother, mother and older sister in it. Father – absent, no brothers. So I had one woman past it, one in the middle of it and another beginning it! I had it X3… But the irony is now I have a wife and twin daughters (after the first 2 years of that – I’m not going back to the well) – so I’m destined from birth to, let’s say 70, in having to deal with the Madness. But at least I am not alone!
I spose as I bought the Monthly, I can rationalise buying P/house this month too.
Mrs Daze.
“he just points and laughs at me”
Are you mad woman?
Are you that certifiable that you would have me march naked into a blast furnace?
Bravery or foolishness of that magnitude may be all the G.O. on the Somme, or when storming Iwo Jima with dispatches being written & Stars of Valour being handed out like condoms at O week, but in my kitchen? Good lord woman your foolishness exceeds belief.
I have learnt from those wiley Javanese and crafty Indians, adapting some of their “living with tigers” techniques to that four or five days around the full moon. I leave offerings of flowers and chocolates and if necesary I will tie my kid (in this case a human not goat) to a stake in sacrifice. In a worst case scenario I have been known to bait a pit trap covered with palm leaves with premium ice cream, but as with tigers the question then becomes what do you do with a PMT monster in a pit?
Only through traditional methods like this and by accepting that is all, entirely, absolutely, 110%, manifestly, and self evidently my fault have I been able to survive this long.
Oh and let me to be the first in _this_ thread to say “Fuck off Jane”
NWB Hear Hear, go play in the traffic Jane.
I’ve always found it effective or rather provocative in these cyclical, periodical events to suggest to the symptomatic monster, “‘scuse me dear, isn’t there a pill for that?” talk about strip to the sleeves and show scars.
Gentlemen, gentlemen please. I am sure our colleauge Miss Jane will bring nothing but the sweetest of bon mot and wittiest of rejoinders to this most mature of discussions.
Pointing and laughing would be a lot like pouring petrol on a bonfire hereabouts. I’ve developed The Stone Face as a response. It’s a variant on something my first ju-jutsu instructor used to do on the dojo floor… he’d just sort of LOOK at you as you were approaching to spar, and you’d know without a shadow of a doubt that You Were Making An Error.
So when things get mad, I stay low-profile and mostly ignore it. But if it gets personal, or the kids get in the crossfire, the Stone Face goes on, and I get the car keys. Because the last time things went pear-shaped, I explained that the next time they did, either Natalie would be taking a four-day holiday elsewhere, or the kids and I would.
Status remains quo on that. And matters have been rather more civilised since.
I’m told it’s something that “just can’t be helped.” Fine. I understand that alcoholics and drug addicts have a problem too. But I don’t feel obliged to share a house with any of such when they lose the thread, and society at large doesn’t demand it of me, or my children.
So I don’t really see the goddam difference.
Nicely put Flinthart. So you won’t be NEEDING those balls anymore, I take it?
Bitches, man. Can’t live without them; can’t stuff them in a sack.
Australia, have you heard of something called “the pill?” It addresses most hormonal issues relating to estrogen production. It means – women have been yelling at you because you’re not god’s answer to manhood. Recent research has proven that men also have monthly hormonal cycles, explaining your chocolate cravings, Birmingham.
Science hasn’t proven it, but I suspect your homonal cycle is inverse to a woman’s. You’re a jerk 26 days of the month and tolerable for five days each month. Craving chocolate, Birmingham?
J.
I was waiting to hear our “Learned Friend” SJS’s opinion..
The true facts of the matter are that pill or no pill, you are all a bunch of raving loony monsters every fricken month.. then you deny it…
I once taped my then girlfriends insane ranting and screaming.. and played it back to her a week later.
She actually said that I was being melodramatic. The next month, she bounced several coffee cups off my forehead to make a point about her shopping habits.
At this point I went on the offensive and removed her possessions from my place.
Can you imagine if I had the temerity to throw coffee cups at her ?
I would have been locked up by the wallopers in no time.
These days with Ms Yuppy, I return fire at equal intensity.
I follow the following marriage advice given to me by a wise old sage…(my Mothers second husband)..
NO SURRENDER !
Like spending a week TREADING ON FUCKING EGG SHELLS, the up side being POST this god dam affliction they so readily deserve is that they want to jump you eight times a day for a small time. BUT…um…where was I , forgot what we were really doing for a bit there.
OH thats right, well I can tells ya, even without the actually monthsly affiction due to some medical conditions and partial removal of said plumbing, they craxy, scary, prone to randon acts of violence, wenches, still GO EFFIN NUTS once a MONTH, those hormons dont stop just cos of an Operation, TRUST ME, like effin clock work, the nuttyness, although tempered somewhat still arrives.
I treat it like its got one of the Force Foelds around it , like on DUNE, the slow blade penetrates, anthing that is not sneaky will see apendages CUT OFF. Just stay the fuck away and leave the cranky thing alone, or …as you say, SEND THEM AWAY!
Okay, okay – all kidding aside: one week per month of walking on eggshells is a small price to pay for the concrete and ethereal benefits associated with feminine company. If that were not true, men would not put up with it. The ones who don’t end up alone.
Besides, any reasonably intelligent man can manage any woman, no matter how crazy.
Please don’t tell my wife I wrote that.
PNB..LOL, its the ONLY event bar Bathurst that I can track in my head wth regularity , no computer aids necessary..ya JUST KNOW!……
PNB “If that were not true, men would not put up with it. The ones who don’t end up alone.”
Actually, I believe they may, in fact, be gay….and happy….
to add to previous comment, my good friends, the LMPs (Low maintenance poofs) have always advocated a female free environment… But I swear blind that one of the two definatly gets PMS…he can be really bitchy some times…..
You just don’t get it do you? Yes the husband points and laughs at me,but it is the way he does it that makes the difference.
He isn’t called Husband of the century for nothing you know.
Gays just love dick. Its got nothing to do with how women behave.
Why are you people complaining? At your ages your wives are menopausal and growing runaway facial hair. You’re lucky if they have enough estrogen to prevent growth of an Adam’s apple.
J.
Speak for yourself I only date girls in their 20s
Yet, none of the “girls” seem to want your company for an extended amount of time. You’re more hormonal than anything Birminham imagines. Or, should I just shorten that to “ho” (since you don’t commit)? You do, however, commit most of your time to guys (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Therefor, you don’t need to worry about estrogen unless the guy has a lot of acne. Estrogen and steroids produce a lot of acne.
J.
“none of the “girls” seem to want your company for an extended amount of time.”
Actually currently I have the reverse problem in multiples. Thank god for SMS. And thats probably all I should say ;-)
Jealous much Sweetie? maybe 20 years ago if you were better looking….
I think what males find most difficult/offensive about it is that women just expect everyone else to put up with their problem, and none more than their partner whom they expect to just cop it. You get no credit if you do but you get demerits if you don’t.
Trowers – “gender dosen’t grant immunity.” I have as much sympathy for you as I do for drug dealers who have their home invaded by a rival dealer…and then claim on their house insurance.
I thought you were going to Iran to sought everything out Jane?
Lobes, you fool – let’s just say I have plenty of estrogen and will for another two decades. Additionally, you’re not my type; you’re Australian and male.
J.
NOT IRAN! I won’t leave until December, and it’s another type of job.
J.
Such a shame. I really go for the angry abusive types.
ROTFLMFAO.
At everything. It’s all champagne comedy.
But Lobes and Jane are the headline act.
Worth the price of entry at least. ;-)
I think this thread has only reinforced my suspicion that Jane is actually a 40-something bloke resembling Sol Trujillo, only a bit heavier. Let’s call that a working hypothesis that is now a little stronger.
Surely SJ is just birmo stoking the fires. No one can be that humorless for real.
Nah, even Birmos not lame enough to piss himself at his own jokes.
Cheech Marin comes to mind also. Let’s just say it’s a mental picture, a vision. Or the bloke from Nickelback, not that I’d willingly endure their music.
We did have a picture of Jane posted in the comments once at JS … frightening.
OH,
Up on Blocks,
On stumps
In for a service
All phrases I have heard other fellows utilise for the others half…TERROR TIME!…
Never posted a pic of me… You’d know me by my wheelchair and glasses if it’s legit. Cheech Marin – you’re actually getting warmer. He’s a lot older, but he and I share unique perspectives and strange takes on humour. We also like the same places; Cheech is my man – he and Robert Rodriguez.
Birmingham, I taught Drama I & II. Add Greek Drama, Communications, and Shakespeare to courses I’ve taught. Of course, I always got center stage.
J.
Oh – and I always wear black or dark earth tones – um, unless it’s footbal or basketball season and my teams are playing.
J.
l
Do any of you ever watch “House?” If I were an older, British comic/actor portraying a drug-addicted American doctor with a physical disability, THAT’S how I would sound. Yes, everything is definitely about me.
J.
OH we know you as the DRAMA QUEEN SJS..no doubt about that!
I’ve suspected for some time that Jane is a composite character like me. Subtle but striking language use differences indicate shifting gender as well as shifting personalities within genders. My guess is that Jane is two women and three men in different cities taking turns at the keyboard, so to speak. My online persona is made up of twenty different people, most of whom are middle aged but still living with their parents. But what is wrong with that? Nothing! It is a matter of economic benefits, not a matter of social immaturity. Albert Einstein lived with his parents until he was 43. Otto Von Bismark didn’t leave home until he was elected Chancellor.