This one’s more for the females, as I’m sure you can relate (well, sort of. Probably not to the extreme that my spaztastic lifestyle includes, but you know what I mean.) Being that the few males who read this are married, I’m fairly confident that you realize most females go insane about three days a month, you know why, and that’s as much as I’m going to elaborate.

First, I get up to go to work (our office is casual most of the week, Fridays are a free for all that once included an NKOTB shirt on my part and yoga pants on my coworker) and put on what in my head was a sort of cute Friday outfit: Jeans, my velcro gym shoes, a long sleeve black shirt with a white tee over it with a giant blue W on it, made to look like the Cubs flag after a win. Upon first glance at the mirror at work, however, the black shirt looked faded, the W looked off center, and my makeup, hair, and face looked stupid. And I hated the back pockets of my jeans. (They have buttons! What was I thinking?) Again, I will remind you it’s a precarious three days of the month for me, but I beg you to keep this in mind for the rest of the story, as, at least to the females, it will make more sense.

I’m almost to work, coming up to California and Roosevelt, happily bouncing along to “The Block,” when someone cuts me off while I’m slowing down for a red light. I’m non-confrontational. Whatever. Light’s red, doesn’t matter. However, when the light turns green, I expect the driver to hit the pedal on the right. She doesn’t. So I lightly tap my horn — NOT laying on it as my sister and most aggressive drivers I know would have, in case she didn’t notice. I then see the telltale brake lights, showing she’s put the car in park. She’s yelling out the window (light’s still green) and her door opens. I respond by yelling “Don’t you get out of that f*ing car!”

For those of you unfamiliar with the area – California and Roosevelt is not exactly the best place to get into an argument, especially if you’re a dumb blonde white girl without a gun. She then ignores my (empty) threat and gets out of her car, screaming at me that there are kids in the car and I should shut my damn mouth and blah, blah, blah. I respond by yelling, “What the hell do kids have to do with the LIGHT BEING GREEN! Fucking GO!” Which totally pissed her off and I jerked the wheel, went around her, and blew the light. She then blew the light and tailed my bumper (so much for the worries of the kids, which I still don’t understand.) Had this happened on any of the other 27 days of April, I most likely would have been on the phone with either the police or my dad, but instead, I tapped my brakes all the way down Cali until Fulton, yelling absurd, made up profanities (“Head ass! Bitch knees!”), when she finally turned the other way.

So, I’m going to Vegas next week for Carly’s bachelorette party. I am hopelessly unprepared in terms of clothing, as we’re going to a Club. I have never, in all my times there, made it to a Club. The closest we got was the top of the Rio the year I hit a jackpot and won $700, but that’s all kind of hazy cause Tony bought me a drink as big as a fishbowl that cost $35, smoked because there was dry ice in the bottom of it, and came with seven straws cause the bartender told him no one should ever finish it alone. I vaguely remember offering straws to a nice (horrified) British family and taking the glass back to the hotel in a taxicab (I still have it,) but that’s about it. Of course, today is the day I FREAK OUT about it, deciding I must have an entirely new wardrobe immediately. Now, ladies, we know where this is going, right? One should never, ever, ever, shop on these particular days, as absolutely everything looks like shit, your face looks weird, and you appear 20 pounds heavier, like in those fun house mirrors.

Keeping in mind my budget, I conscientiously scour the internet for coupons to my favorite stores (which I’ve never done before, but I’m full of bright ideas!) and head out of work spectacularly excited and optimistic about my shopping. Yay! A new dress, and shoes, and maybe a shirt! I’ll be the toast of Treasure Island in my discounted items! Everyone will love my cute clothes! (Again, females? You understand the hysterical, bipolar ups and downs that come with being a woman, right?) My mood takes a sudden, predictably sad turn at the fact that of course the ONLY DRESS WORTH HAVING cuts severely into my strict $75 dollar budget, as even with my coupon it was $82, and I now plod along unhappily amongst the teenagers and rude ass people with the dumb racecar stroller in my stupid t shirt and ugly pants to another store.

But Eureka! We’re back up again with a super cute pink and black dress which I snatch off the rack and run to the dressing room with, secure in the fact that with some great black heels, I’ll fit right in at the Club and look great doing it! Put it on, begin downward spiral, wondering if, because it’s one of those dresses that cuts right below the boobs and just hangs straight (well, more of in a triangle shape on me,) it makes me look like a Snuffleopougus on a bad day, but still thinking it might be the best dress EVER. Come out of the dressing room to check it out in three way mirror, when an annoyingly cute 16 year old tramp who works there exclaims, “Omigod! So cute! When are you due?”

Surprisingly, I do not A) burst into tears or B) headbutt and then sit on her, yelling “You look just like I used to! Just wait until a few years of unemployment and McDonald’s catch up with you!” instead replying, “No time in the forseeable future, but thank you for making the decision for me NOT to buy this dress.”

Still have no clothes for Vegas. But consider today a heroic success as I neither strangled anyone nor put my head in the oven.