Sex and Suburbia, Hormone Monsters

Sex and Suburbia, Hormone Monsters
By Julie Stankowski

Ummm, where do I start? My life is a sitcom, when I am in the viewing the glass as half full mood. Or, my life is a horror movie, when I am in the glass half empty mood. These days, I never know what mood I’ll be in when I wake up. I don’t think I have any control over it. I think my body has been taken over by the hormone monsters. I think that when I fall asleep each night, the hormone monsters gather in some imaginary saloon somewhere, have a few beers, play a little poker and then decide if they are going to bless me with the happy hormones or curse me with the horrible, yucky, hot-flashy hormones. The hormone monsters do this each and every night; they never seem to get bored with it. I wonder whether the hormone monsters realize how very much power they have and that their little decision during their stupid poker game affects every person that comes into contact with me. I wonder whether they realize they are making me look like a crazy person to the outside world. I think the hormone monsters are all male.

I bet the male hormone monsters are also contentious lawyers who would argue that they are innocent of my accusations and then try to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury by pointing the finger elsewhere.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let us start out by saying that we are completely innocent of the charges alleged against us by the obviously unstable and loony plaintiff in this matter. During the course of this trial, we will show that said plaintiff lives a crazy, nutty overscheduled life and is surrounded by people and circumstances that clearly are the culprits of said plaintiff’s excessive moodiness. We will provide witness upon witness who will testify that he or she has actually caused this plaintiff to become a certifiable nut case. And by the end, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will have no choice but to find us “not guilty” of these charges. And for your own safety, you may also want to ask the judge to commit this plaintiff to a mental institution for an indefinite period of time.

Your Honor, the Hormone Monsters (HM) call their first witness, the plaintiff’s son.

HM: Please state your age for the court.

Son: I’m 4.

HM: Have you done anything recently that you think may have upset your mommy?

Son: Well, last night I hit my sister. I wouldn’t stop playing Wii when my mommy asked me to. I cried a lot because I didn’t want to take a bath. I threw a temper tantrum because mommy was making me go to bed and I wanted to play Sandman Tower on the computer. I pulled the dog’s tail because I was really, really mad. Then after mommy tucked me in, I got out of bed and ate a whole bag of Skittles. My fingers got really sticky from holding the Skittles in my hand, but I wiped them off on my sheets, so I’m pretty sure my mommy doesn’t know I ate the candy. Then, I called for my mommy to come into my room in the middle of the night because I had an accident in my bed. Mommy took care of it, put me back to sleep in her bed because my daddy is out of town and then went downstairs to wash my sheets and my night-night. Then my mommy went back to sleep, but the smoke alarm went off because of a problem with the vent or something on the dryer and mommy had to find a broom and stand on a chair to bang the alarm down from the ceiling so that it would shut off, but that wasn’t my fault.

HM: Thank you, son. No further questions. We call our next witness, the plaintiff’s daughter. Please state your age for the court.

Daughter: I’m 8.

HM: Have you done anything recently that you think may have upset your mommy?

Daughter: No.

HM: Okay, can you think really hard about anything that may have happened recently that may have bothered your mom a little?

Daughter: Well, just that my little brother can be a poo-poo-dumb-head. But my mom never gets mad at him because she says he’s so cute and funny.

HM: Thank you. No further questions. We call our next witness, the plaintiff’s dog. Please state your name and age for the court.

Dog: My name is Sonoma and I am 8 months old.

HM: You’re with the plaintiff a lot. Have you witnessed anything recently that may have caused her to become upset?

Dog: Uh, maybe. First, I barked at the door because I had to go potty, but nobody opened the door so I peed on the floor. Then I was hungry so I chewed on the couch for a while. Then I had to have an operation so I wouldn’t have puppies. Turns out I also had an ear infection. I am home now, but, as you can see, I have a huge cone on my head so I can’t bite my stitches and my mom has to put 8 drops in my ear every day. I hate that so I make it very hard for her to get anywhere near my ear. It’s kind of fun. Then I heard her talking on the phone. She said she was at the doctor every day last week, but she’s fine now. She said that on the way to her doctor’s appointment she broke a tooth and had to go to the dentist. I think she was really unhappy about that because I heard her say that she would rather have a pap smear, a mammogram and a colonoscopy all in one day than go to the dentist. I also think she had an argument with my dad because all of the sudden I heard her say hello, hello, hello and then she hung up the phone. It appeared the person on the other end of the line was no longer there. Then I heard her say some pretty bad curse words. Then I followed her in the bathroom and saw her take out a kind of long skinny thing I think she called a tampon. Then I saw her take some Advil. Then she washed her face because she was sweating a lot, like she was really hot.

HM: Anything else?

Dog: Yes. Then I heard her say that she had to make an appointment with her gynecologist because the goddamn hormone monsters were making her crazy.

The jury found the hormone monsters guilty as charged. The jury further found the hormone monsters had to pay restitution in the form of sending plaintiff on an all-expense paid Crystal Cruise vacation including all spa services. The jury sentenced the hormone monsters to life in a girls’ sorority house where they can’t get anywhere near any pre-menepausal-40-year-old-women, without the possibility of parole.