STRANGER THAN FICTION: CHOCOLATE CRAVINGS BECOMING HARDER TO RESIST

Once a month, my normally irresistible husband becomes a total idiot. Or maybe it's just me.

If you're a man who's sensitive to a woman's unique-yet-beautiful physical makeup, you can stay. You guys who refuse to purchase feminine products for your wife due to embarrassment or machismo, get out. We don't want your kind around here.

Today, we're going to talk about pre-menstrual syndrome, otherwise known as PMS.

Yes, it's OK to talk about this in a family newspaper. Everyone's seen the bumper stickers that suggest PMS actually stands for Putting Up With Men's...you get the picture. And everyone's seen the television ads for all the products that relieve it.

Well, I have a confession to make. The older I get, the more water I retain, the more emotional I become and the more chocolate I eat.

As a know-it-all teenager, I thought all those magazine articles on the subject exaggerated the problem. "Hah! PMS is just an invention so weak women can do and say whatever they want without consequences," I said. I didn't say it out loud, of course, because I didn't want people to think I was nuts. But that was before the voices told me it was OK to speak to myself where others could hear.

"And what's more," I continued, "men use PMS to prove that women are irrational. They say we're unable to handle the presidency because we'd activate nuclear weapons once a month."

Yeah, we've all heard that beer-induced sentiment, haven't we?

But a few years older and much wiser, I finally understand what those magazine articles were talking about. I'm sitting here at age 28 with a big pimple festering on my cheek. I'm doped up on Midol. I suddenly believe The Other Half is a total idiot.

And then there's the food -- what I like to call Heidi's PMS Diet Plan. Here's today's menu, for example:

BREAKFAST: Are you kidding? The cramps are so bad I can't even get out of bed until 10:45 a.m.

LUNCH: Turkey sandwich on kaiser roll with low-fat mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. It's a healthy choice that just isn't cutting it today. So I eat a handful of holiday M&Ms. Two low-fat toaster pastries. Another handful of M&Ms. A glass of iced tea. A third handful of M&Ms.

SNACK: Two Auntie Anne's pretzels at the mall, neither of which have enough sugar to feed the PMS beast. A chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut.

DINNER: Crock-Pot chicken and stuffing, salad and iced tea. An entire pint of Ben & Jerry's Double Fudge Brownie.

SNACK: A handful of M&Ms.

I saw a guy on television once say that chocolate and sugar is the worst thing a woman can do for PMS, that it just makes it worse. But what does HE know? Has he ever been doubled over with cramps? Stupid men!

Which brings me to Mr. Half.

I normally love Mr. Half. He's good looking, kind, generous, sensitive, helpful, clean, sexy and all those other nice things. But for one week out of the month, he becomes a total idiot.

Take today, for example. He took Tippin Street to the mall when Ninth Avenue would clearly have been faster. Then he swept the kitchen floor TOTALLY wrong. You start from the back wall and work toward the door, not the other way around!

And then there was the laundry. He KNOWS I like the socks divided -- the plain white in one pile and the colorful ones in another. Geez!

At least I haven't totally lost it like the women they always show on television. For some reason, screenwriters have one method of showing that a woman is one sandwich short of a picnic. She sits down at her vanity, picks up a lipstick and starts marking all over her face with it. Then she picks up some scissors and starts whacking off her hair in random chunks.

That wouldn't work for me. I'd probably walk outside and the neighbors would ask, "Makeover?"

The only up side of PMS is that it truly does give you the power to do and say things you wouldn't normally. Take my college-student neighbors. They're three girls, all on the local university's soccer team. They leave their trash piled up in front of their door until meek little Heidi gathers it together for them and takes it to the Dumpster.

But when PMS Heidi takes over, in the words of Donnie Brasco, forgetaboutit!

"Hey!" I yelled at one of them. "I know those feet of yours couldn't manage to win a game last season, but you think you could kick a trash bag down to the Dumpster for a refreshing change?"

Of course, this will all be over in a few days. My jeans will fit, my husband will be smart again and my face will be clear. But it's a living Hades right now.

Wonder if we have any more M&Ms.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who lives in Pensacola, Fla.