A tale of fear and romance...

...the fire was lit. The table beautifully set...champagne was chilling... I had adorned myself in a slinky little dress sans spanx...the only thing dangling was my sparkly earrings because my arms had somehow, magically become firm and young and smooth...my husbands full head of thick hair glistened in the light of the fire...

WHAT????

Hair????

Hold on a second.

OUCHHHHHH! (I pinched myself too hard I think!)

And now I awake to the reality of our Friday night.

I was tired. I had on my fancy red flannel nightgown...the one with plaid that makes me look hot! My only accessory was matching red fleece slippers. Hey, when you've got it, you've got it! Who needs all that fancy stuff like dresses, make-up and combed hair anyway.

We were laying on the couch watching the American Idol results show. Nothing says romance more then watching peoples dreams get shattered.

We were eating plata de carne from a Mexican restaurant...and, hey, nothing says romance like a plate of meat. Right?

The only conversation between us was along these lines, "hey, do you have any green salsa left?" and "do you miss Paula?"

It was a typical, romantic, Friday night love-fest at our house.

And then it hit the magic hour. The sweet spot of the evening. Eight o'clock!

I heaved myself off the couch, brushed off all the meat crumbs to our weiner dogs great delight and went to get my nightly medicine. Nothing exciting except for melatonin, calcium, magnesium and progesterone.

My husband had gone earlier in the day to the blending pharmacy to pick up my new prescription for the progesterone because my doctor wanted me to try switching from capsules to cream.

Now you see the romance unfolding, don't you?

Huh?

You don't?

Well, just wait. I'm getting there. Don't rush me.

When you get old like me and the doctors remove all those excess female parts you need some magic elixirs like progesterone and estrogen or there would be no romance. Ever. Trust me on this. I know what I speak of.

And actually, come to think of it, there would probably be no husband sticking around to even have romance with...zero hormones equals zero sweetness. At least for me!

So I open the little prescription bag and I see this... and I dig around in the bag and there are no instructions. Hmmm...

OK, this shouldn't be too hard. I read "Apply 1 ML (2 turns) to wrists every evening at bedtime."

OK. I turn the little blue knob thing. Nothing happens. I poke and I prod and I pull on all the moving parts I can find. And nothing happens.

I take it to my husband who is in a meat induced stupor on the couch impatiently waiting to see who gets the final ax on American Idol and I ask him to try.

He tries everything he can think of.

We look at each other.

He has fear in his eyes.

He knows what will happen if I do not have my progesterone. I will awaken him at 3 am unable to sleep and possibly weeping.

He tries harder.

The blending pharmacy is only open until 5, Monday through Friday. Uh oh.

So we take the little evil bottle into my office and google every possible combination of words trying to find instructions on how to get the ridiculous device to work.

No luck.

I call some people I know who take hormone therapy. Nope, they just squirt it out of tube. I leave some messages and send some texts to other people but I don't hear anything back.

OK, I'm getting annoyed.

I dig through my medicine drawer looking for an errant progesterone capsule that might be laying there for some reason.

Nada.

My husband fear increases.

"I'm tired," he whines, "I need to sleep tonight."

We decide to call the 24 hour pharmacy by our house.

My husband describes the dispenser. The pharmacist says "bring it up and we'll figure it out."

So my husband gets clothes on he can wear in public and puts on his shoes and goes up to the pharmacy.

He is gone a long time.

He comes home looking defeated.

He says, "we pushed, we pulled, he took it apart...he says just squirt some out and rub it on your wrist and call the blending pharmacy on Monday."

I'm not sure about this theory. I take quite a few meds and they are pretty carefully balanced out and if one goes out of whack then everything goes out of whack pretty quickly. Monday is three progesterone doses away.

But then the phone rings.

It is a very sweet lady I know answering my urgent text. "Oh no, what's wrong?" she says before I even say hello. Perhaps texting 911 was a tiny bit over the top.

Oh well. Dramatic crisis requires dramatic action!

So, I ask her how to dispense the cream. I cross my fingers while I'm asking because I know she gets her meds at the same blending pharmacy I do.

And she tells me. OK, first there is a little bit of screaming about sending a 911 text in a non-emergency...but then she tells me how to make it work!

She says, "turn the little blue knob until the holes line up on the top and push the little button on the bottom of the dispenser."

Button?

Button?

Oh. Um. Yea. There is a little button.

I thank her profusely and show my husband the little button.

He says, "that wasn't there before, was it?"

So I try the instructions.

And it works, perfectly.

We both exhale.

I apply 2 turns of the cream.

And we resume watching American Idol.

And if that is not a tale of fear and romance I don't know what is.

There is no terror greater then a man watching his woman run out of hormone replacement therapy.

And, just forget the dangly earrings (or arms), forget the sleek black dress, forget a full head of masculine hair gleaming in the firelight. There is nothing romantic about those things at all.

Romance is a guy who is willing to step away from his meat platter, get dressed, drive to the pharmacy and spend 20 minutes trying to figure out his wife's progesterone cream dispenser.

Awwwww....

Sigh...

Which reminds me. Did you enter the Lisa Leonard necklace giveaway. That is another serious "awwwwww".