I barfed in the car today.  When I first purchased a 1997 Chevrolet Lumina with heavy hail damage and a chipping clearcoat, I thought it a mote odd that the previous owner had sprung for ridiculously oversized, heavy duty racing mats.  But you know, when you pitch forward to throw up at a stop sign, they’re a really nice feature.

I thought about calling my doctor.  Not because I threw up, but because this is the second time in a couple of months this has happened.  I start feeling icky late the night before or early in the morning.  By the time I get to work at 8, I’m gripping the edge of my desk because it feels like I’ll spin right off of it.  Since I can’t even think about eating anything, I’m amazed that my stomach feels the need to do backflips around my torso until sometime in the early evening, at which point I finally feel like I can maybe not faint and/or ruin the furniture with bodily fluids.

By this time, I feel super skinny but also super famished, and also super deadbeat because I didn’t get any work done and my boss is probably none too pleased with me.  But still, I hate calling the doctor.  The office is all the way over in Clayton and there’s a $20 co-pay just to get seen.  Do you have $20 to spend on a day’s worth of nausea?  I don’t.

So instead of calling the doctor, I made a list.  I hadn’t been drinking the night before, so alcohol wasn’t the problem.  Unfortunately, I also don’t do drugs.  The sandwich I ate yesterday didn’t cause anything but deliciousness, and if coffee is what’s making me sick, well, too fucking bad, Body, because I’m not quitting that.

And NO, assholes, I’m not pregnant.  That possibility didn’t come close to making the list.  Why?  Well, because my uterus is currently…occupied.  With something that is not a fetus.  My uterus is doing it’s best to evict this non-fetus, so….

Goddamn.

I’m not going to be one of those medication whores who seeks out prescriptions for everything from phantom leg pains to insufficient eyelashes (fuck you, Brooke Shields), so forgive me if I think a little period discomfort comes part and parcel with being this gender.  It’s possible that I think this because I don’t usually have all that much discomfort.  Sometimes my back feels like it’ll cramp off of my body, but for the most part, it’s just inconvenient.  Occasionally, though my reproductive organs decide to let me know who’s boss in this joint.  And they are pissed.

It’s not the cramps that bother me.  It’s not the bloating, either, though I’d love to be able to use that as an excuse for some chunk.  It’s the – and boys, you have to know that I never claimed not to cause anyone any TMI-related trauma – anemia-worsening loss of red blood cells that cause my vision to swim in my head, my throat to vibrate with heartburn, and my whole self to barf in my car.

Thanks to Dr. Google*, I now plan to keep a supply of iron supplements and Midol at the ready.  Missing work is a bigger hassle than it’s worth for me, and my neighbor is enough of a bitch even when I’m not planning on using their hose to wash off my floormats.

*”Dr. Google” thanks to pamie.