“Yeah, I Said It” is my column on all the things I am not supposed say but do anyway.

For the American woman, every day is a study in anger management. If one ‘Googles’ the term ‘Anger Management,’ the first piece of advice she’ll find is recognizing that anger is a delusional state that offers no real useful purpose.1 Wow, that is really not the technique I would start with for an angry woman. “Oh you’re mad? Well, hate to tell you this but that means you’re crazy too. Feel better? Didn’t think so.”

We aren’t crazy. We’re pissed and here’s why:

I am about to paint an all too familiar scene for my fellow women. You have just had a day filled with typical ‘lady’ experiences including but not limited to:

-Awaking to a break-out in your t-zone whilst finding new wrinkles around your eyes… Always a great way to start your day

-Finding that your fat jeans have now become your skinny jeans

-A little sexy time at the Gyno where his preferred method of making you feel comfortable is to continue making small-talk while he is up to his elbows inside you. I want to know the med school professor who was like “Just ask about their weekend. They won’t even know you’re there.”

And then your significant other spouts these lovely words in a super accusatory tone…

“Why are you so pissed?”

I would like to answer this on behalf of all my fellow Bitches once and for all:

Dear All Men,
Apparently there has been a teensy weensy miscommunication. At some point in your adolescence, a young lady asked all of you idiots to ‘have a Talk.’ In this Talk, said young lady expressed a need for you to care about her feelings. You took from this a new modus operandi. Caring about feelings would henceforth mean: when she looks like anything other than Chipper Cheerleader, you take it as a personal assault on your manhood and say the following:

-What’s Wrong?

-What are you so mad about?

-Why are you so pissed?

Well since you asked…

When we woke up this morning to go to work, where we make 2/3 what you make, we got one hour less sleep than you.2 So for starters, boys, we are tired, and your semi-hard yule tide log in our back is not exactly the wake up call we were looking for but thanks for that. Uber-considerate of ya.

Now part of the reason that we get less sleep than you is that we have to run the entirety of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ in our bathroom EVERY DAMN DAY. The amount of hours that most women spend going from Janet Reno to Sarah Palin is easily over 10,000 hours.3 So, while you were out becoming a super star in some fascinating extracurricular activity outside of your chosen career like golf, poker, or screwing the neighbor who teaches Pilates, we were becoming experts in the field of water proof mascara, flat irons, and Spanx. Mostly so that you don’t do the Pilates instructor. As Alanis would say, “Isn’t that ironic?” No. Not really. It is mostly just infuriating.

“Well, at least you gals have moved on to breakfast after all that,” you must be thinking to yourself. Puhleese. We are lucky to get a Slim Fast shake, because unlike your 2500 calories a day we only get about 1200, which is basically like when your creepy aunt who smells like cats and thinks Jell-o is a food group hands you a quarter and tells you not spend it all in one place. So when you say “It feels so much better when you swallow,” I have tell ya I am thinking that I have a limited amount of calories and unless you just made your cum taste like a Snakwells cookie, I can not afford to waste those 25 calories on your baby batter, buddy. We have to count EVERYTHING. So not only are we hungry, but we are doing math all damn day.

Now we move on to the really fun stuff. Every week our vaginas, or the people who want to use them, ask something new of them. Oh what? You thought you had dibs on our real-life Georgia O’Keeffe painting?4 We wish.

Gynos want to scrape it (on a side note if you are a male Ob-Gyn, please do not tell me that something doesn’t hurt. When is the last time someone stuck a speculum in your uterus? That’s what I thought. Shut it.)

Husbands want us to wax it. The next time you ask for that I have a suggestion… You first.

Mother Nature wants to take on the ‘No white pants after Labor Day’ before Labor Day.

My baby maker has to reinvent itself more times than Madonna, and I am over it to say the least.

And while I am hauling ass to keep the picture of me at 22 a reality every day, a real 22-year-old who gets to eat carbs, still doesn’t know where the wrinkle cream section is in the drug store, and sleeps until noon, is making me look like the angry salvia-soaked alien in an 80’s movie that she thinks is ‘vintage.’

So, the next time you even think about asking us why we’re so pissed, DON’T. Please just say these magic words…

“Wow! You look really skinny in those jeans.”

1. Anger Management Techniques.com’s featured writer happens to be the Dali Lama so I feel a little bit uncomfortable slamming these guys in the first paragraph…but they won’t be angry because that would be delusional.

2. New England Journal of Medicine, Aug. 1999

3. According to Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, 10,000 is the magic number of hours at which people become experts in their field.

4. C’mon, you know damn well those aren’t ‘desert flowers.’ Coincidence that Georgia O’Keeffe outsold Van Gough’s “Starry Night” poster as the most popular piece of art owned by girls at Sarah Lawrence? I think not.