I swear it seems like only yesterday when I was a cute young thing. I can't tell you how many times I heard, "Four kids? You can't possibly have four kids! You're way too young and too thin."  And I just smiled smugly, secure in the belief that, oh hell yeah, I did look way too young and too skinny to be the mother of four children (although I did always wonder exactly what a mother of four was supposed to look like.)  Yep, those were the days. I had a closet full of itty-bitty clothes, pants that had waistlines that had no elastic anywhere in sight and skirts that showed off my shapely legs. I couldn't pass a mirror without pausing to check my sexy self out. Aging was not a subject I was concerned with. I remember thinking I must have inherited good genes or something.

Well, I would like to know where the hell those good genes got off to, because they certainly seem to have slipped away. My hour-glass figure has somehow morphed into a reverse hour-glass, elastic is my friend and there is nothing in my closet that could possibly be described as itty-bitty. The few mirrors left in my house are shrouded at all times and if I accidentally catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface somewhere, I stop, drop and roll.  The most shocking part is that I still have a mental image of myself as the shapely, young thing. So, I am always unprepared for the chubby broad staring out at me from store windows or the mirror that somehow sneaks up on me when I am out somewhere. 

I might have been able to deal with all of THAT, as wretched as it is, were it not for the never-ending grab-bag of surprises offered up by Mother Nature's grand idea of a joke called MENOPAUSE. The very word strikes fear into the hearts of women everywhere. And ladies, trust me, if you don't yet fear that word, oh honey, you just don't know what you have to look forward to. Take, for example, the dreaded hot flash. HA! First of all, it is not a flash. The word "flash" would indicate a very short period of time, simply a moment, an extremely brief second or two. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA. I don't know who the idiot was who came up with that phrase, but he should roast in hell, because a slow roast in hell is a much more apt description of the experience of a hot "flash." And "hot" doesn't even come close. In fact, there isn't a word in any language that I'm aware of that could adequately convey the intensity of heat that works its way from the inside of your body to the outside, causing streams of S.W.E.A.T. to pour off your head, down your face, down your back and between your breasts with the force of a water hose turned on full-force. 

Just an FYI to any men who have been brave enough to venture in here. Should you come upon a woman who is experiencing a hot flash, do not, I repeat - DO NOT, jokingly say to her, "Is it hot enough for you out there?" or some equally inane comment. She will not be amused and there is every possibility that she will leap over the counter, grab you by your spiffy little green clerk-jacket and bash your head repeatedly on the brand new counter of the brand new convenience store that you have just opened at the corner of her neighborhood. Not that I would know anything about something like that. I'm just saying - it could happen. 

And don't flinch when I walk by you. It only makes me want to smack you, even if I wasn't thinking about it at the time.