Not only do I suck at undressing, my crotch needs more veggies

There you have it. Women were meant to suffer.

I really must thank my dad for bringing over those old Life magazines. They make me giddy.




If you can't read the type above, the ad says there are three ordeals of womanhood. One is passing from girlhood to womanhood (I'll give them that—being told you have grown "mosquito bites" and having Aunt Flo arrive was not exactly the best part of middle school, kissing boys was).

The second ordeal is preparing for motherhood. Preparing, huh? I guess motherhood itself is pure shits and giggles.

The third ordeal is approaching middle age, i.e. menopause (I'm going to say that, at 33, I've got a bit of time before that brick drops).

The ad lists these ordeals as "functional disorders."

Exfuckingcuse me? Menstruation and pregnancy and menopause are functional disorders? The last time I checked they were biological functions.

Anyway, an enterprising woman named Lydia Pinkham (I think she looks more like a Harriet Horlick or Gladys Girth personally) came up with a neat vegetable compound that cured women's ailments (the ad describes the ailments as "nervousness, irritability, and being almost impossible to live with").

The ad goes on to say that women "owe it to their husband and children" and themselves to try the compound.

Now that just outright pisses me off. I am so fricken tired of hearing about how women are a) emotionally instable and b) how that alleged instability is a drain on everyone around them. So what if we have moments of weepiness or irrationality or anger. So the frick what.

Can't we all just get over it?

It's good to feel. It's called being alive.

And do you see the last line? The one that says, "One woman tells another how to go 'smiling through' " with the damn compound.

Hi, if something is enjoyable we don't smile through it. We actually smile. And laugh. And want to do it again.

Women's quality of life was the issue not their three damn ordeals.

According to Wikipedia, descendants of this veggie goop are still available today. Seeing how I've successfully weathered two of my womanly ordeals already, I'm going to pass on ordering some.

(But shoot, now I'm curious as hell. It has Unicorn Root for Pete's sake! Maybe I'll grow a horn and disappear to a magical land of rainbows and leprechauns!)