Another hurdle ahead in the futile race against mortality

I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about getting older. I suppose it's because I'm so juvenile and I don't have children to be a role model for.

When I turned 35, I was kinda bummed. I realized that I could no longer check the 18-34 box on opinion polls and was no longer a part of that taste-making demographic. Since then, I've quit worrying about it -- though I now say things like "Kids these days and their horrible music and violent video games..."

Today I had to go to urgent care and get my first tetanus shot since 1974 because I sliced my heel wide open on the corner of a metal storm door. I'd never been to this practice before, so the nurse had to ask me all the background questions like what meds I take, what allergies I had and so forth. After she asked my date of birth, she asked, "Do you still get your period?" Shocked, I blurted out a little too loudly and urgently, "YES!"

By the time I got home, the encounter had become funny in my mind. I knew my Sainted Southern Mother would get a kick out of it, so I called her and relayed it almost exactly like I did above. After I said, "She asked me if I STILL get my period and I'm only 38!" my mama started laughing. Then my Good Ol' Boy daddy, who had quietly picked up another phone without my noticing, barked, "Let's hope you keep getting it."

As in, "I know you are married and are familiar with Steve in a biblical sense, but I know you don't want children."

To my girls reading this: Do you remember how embarrassing it was talking about your period with ANYONE when you first got it? Did your mom ever ask your dad, in front of you, to pick you up some tampons on his way home from work?

Yeah, it was about that mortifying.