Before I went on the Pill, I used to suffer from mild PMS. I gained a little weight, but only a couple of pounds; I snacked more, but not too much more; I got choked up when I saw a Hallmark ad on television, but I didn’t actually begin weeping. Now, in the era of LoEstrin Fe, things have changed, and not for the better. While the Pill has the happy benefit of making my periods much shorter, it also compresses my PMS into one truly frightful 24-hour interval. During those 24 hours, a listening device planted in my apartment might pick up the following sounds:

1. thock (the vacuum seal on a jar of salsa)

2. crunch crunch crunch (the cruel demise of a bag of tortilla chips)

3. boo hoo hoooooo (Sarah feels sorry for herself because she is fat and ugly)

4. clinkety clink (Sarah comforts herself by eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a knife)

5. see #3

6. beep boop (Sarah speed-dials the Biscuit)

7. snuffle (Sarah prepares to inform the Biscuit that he should find himself another girlfriend, because his current girlfriend is fat and ugly, and furthermore, her writing stinks, her wardrobe stinks, and due to a precipitous gain of water weight, she no longer has ankles of any kind)

8. see #3

9. boop beep (Sarah speed-dials Domino’s)

10. scritch scritch (Sarah writes furiously in her journal and vents about everyone she hates, and because she hates everyone in the entire world except the Biscuit, who narrowly averted disaster by saying “I think you’re pretty,” not to mention the fact that she has itemized each and every defect in her physical appearance, the venting process takes quite some time)

11. slurp slurp slurp (Sarah begins working her way through a box of coconut Frozfruits)

12. doink (yet another zit appears on the bridge of Sarah’s nose)

13. see #3

14. rustle rustle crinkle (Sarah readies a paper bag for her head before running errands)

The rest of the month, I behave like a relatively normal person. I seldom cry, and I don’t even like sweets that much. But on the twenty-eighth day, the cashiers at the deli across the street hear the thud of my progesterone-addled footfalls, and one of them hisses at the new guy, “Remember we what told you. Don’t get between her and the fruit pies.” On the twenty-eighth day, I loathe my body more deeply than I do the other twenty-seven days of the month combined – and not for giving me PMS and making me psycho, either. I just loathe it, period. I stand in front of the mirror as I get ready for bed, and I glare at each and every disgusting dumpy flaw, and I seethe.

I spend as much time obsessing over my various bumps and bulges as the next woman, but most of the time, I can live with them. Some days I look good, other days I look crappy, and I’ve learned to accept that. I’ve come to terms with certain facts: the little neck-exercise clip-and-save that I ripped out of a copy of Redbook in my doctor’s waiting room won’t get rid of my double chin; I can either give up beer or wear a size 10, but not both (i.e. so much for the size 10); my hair knows in advance when I won’t see anyone all day, and will choose that day to look like a Pantene ad. Unfortunately, on “The Day Of The Locust,” I look in the mirror and see a funhouse image refracted back at me, and ordinarily I can calm myself down with a few Stuart Smalleyisms like “at least I have lovely feet” or “certain cultures prize a round tummy,” but not on PMS Day. On PMS Day, every icky pore and unsightly prominence of flesh turns from a mild annoyance into a tragedy, and in a fit of pique, I think to myself that I should just go ahead and eat that quart of guacamole with a spoon because my face already scares little children, so why watch my waistline?

The day after PMS Day last month, when my period arrived and mercifully snapped me out of it, I realized something quite valuable, and I would like to share it with anyone who reads this page and has the occasional bad-body-image day (or week, or whatever). I don’t remember what prompted this insight, but I do remember finding it remarkably liberating. Two words: nobody cares. Last week, I had a “great wall of China” zit – the kind of zit that astronauts can see from space. Did anybody stop me on the street to comment on it? No. I gained five pounds, too, and my khakis fit a little weirdly, and I felt the eyes of the world on my big old butt. Did that fact register with anybody I saw at the grocery store that evening? No. On PMS Day itself, I couldn’t cope with blow-drying my hair, so I braided it Pippi Longstocking-style, and it looked stupid. Did any total strangers remark on its stupidity? No. People have their own problems. Some people have bigger problems, like their taxes or a sick child at home or a mean boss; other people have littler problems, like their own zits and tight pants and uncooperative hair. As a result, most people don’t notice that I have a gigantic pimple and look a little puffy, because they have better things to worry about – namely, themselves. They don’t care. People I know don’t care either. If I lost fifty pounds, they’d probably mention it; if I showed up at a pub with blue contact lenses and a LaToya Jackson nose, they might bring it up in conversation. Will my friends stop calling me because I ate my weight in mixed nuts? No. Will the Biscuit ever say to me, “I’ve suffered your frizz for the last time – pack your things and get out”? No. They don’t care. They care enough to come over and help me try on pup tents, because they care about my feelings. Do they care about my messy cuticles? No. Nobody cares about my messy cuticles except me.

At my high school, girls got picked on for tiny flaws in their dress and appearance; everything from wide hips to a pulled thread on a sweater had a taunt attached to it. I heard more than my share of these taunts (and dished a couple out as well), and ever since my high-school days, when getting ready for school meant inspecting my outfit for possible weak points and formulating a defense, I’ve had a heightened awareness of how I look and what I might have done wrong in that area. Of course, looking back now, I realize that the other girls didn’t really care either – they just wanted to make fun of someone else before they got made fun of themselves – but that experience left its mark, and I still spend way too much time thinking I look bad or stupid. Usually, I don’t, and usually, nobody cares whether I do or not. So, the next time you feel puffy or you find out you’ve walked around with a huge ladder in your stocking all day, just remind yourself that nobody cares and go eat a piece of chocolate. Why not drop it down the front of your white blouse, too? Yeah, a couple of people might stare at the stains, but those people will forget all about you in five minutes, and they probably think they have fat thighs themselves, and since your family still loves you and you won’t have to take a pay cut, what the hell? Nobody cares. Got a big nose? Girl, get in line. Nobody cares. Big ears? Me too. Nobody cares. Forgot to shave your legs? Wear pants and leave yourself a Post-It on the bathroom mirror, because unless you rub your calves on other people for a living, nobody cares.

People – women in particular – will never stop moaning about their physical flaws. I certainly won’t. But I have vowed to keep it in perspective from now on, because if I ask myself whether not having a tight butt has affected my overall quality of life, I have to answer, “No, it hasn’t.” I work out, I try to eat a balanced diet, I don’t have a harelip, the Biscuit has already seen me wearing sweatpants and a blue volcanic mud mask on my face and he didn’t even flinch, and my friends all remembered my birthday. I really hope that I can keep all this in mind the next time PMS Day rolls around – that a mole or a blob of cellulite just doesn’t matter enough in the grand scheme of things to reduce me to tears.

Or, as a former co-worker of mine once said, “Life is short. Pass the Funyuns.”

Share!