Counting the days and peeing on sticks

Just shoot me. It'd be easier.

Here's an eternal womanly truth: Taking a pregnancy test is the single most stressful experience of any woman's life. And it's stressful in a multitude of ways. If you don't want a baby, you spend 5 minutes pacing the bathroom thinking of all the ways this is about to ruin your life and whether the potential father will be up for it.

If you do want a baby, you spend 5 minutes pacing the bathroom thinking of all the ways this is about to ruin your life and whether the potential father will be up for it.

I'd rather do almost anything than take a pregnancy test, which puts me in a rough position, seeing as how I'm setting myself up to take one. Or a dozen. Or however many it takes to get that happy little "plus sign."

And of coure, we know it's time to take that worse-than-the-SATs-test when a woman's period is late. So, those of us expecting to expect count our cycle days.

But when you've been on birth control since you were 16, you've never had a cycle that wasn't a perfect 28 days in length. So now on top of trying to keep your sex life from being stressful by hitting that perfect 3-day ovulation window -- which you have no idea when that is -- you're also spending every fourth week going out of your gourd wondering when to pull out the dreaded test.

And do you know what actually may be worse than taking a pregnancy test? Buying one. Oh, you know that Walmart clerk is looking at that box, and looking at you, and thinking, 1) I hope she's married. 2) It's gonna be false or 3) Honey, you're fat, not pregnant.

I know this because I use to be a retail clerk and I thought that all the time.

So, it's that time of the month. Or it could be. Or maybe it's next week. Or possibly last week. Either way, I have no pregnancy test. Better yet, I don't have money to buy one. Which actually is kind of a relief. I won't have to deal with cashier's accusing stares or those 5 minutes of horror waiting for my pee to develop, and then wondering if it was actually right, or if I need to do it again in the morning with that nice concentrated morning pee. Because every woman knows morning pee is the best pee for taking pregnancy tests. But if I need to take it again, I'll have to buy one of those multi-packs of pregnancy tests. Because otherwise I'm going to have to go back to the store for another. Except a different store. Don't want to get the same clerk.

Cause she'll remember me. Lord knows, she'll remember me.