FORTY FIVE YEARS!!!!!

When mama told Kay, my older sister about menstruation, she decided to include me so she
wouldn’t have to repeat herself in one year. Mama told us that this information was just for our
ears and that we shouldn’t talk to our friends at school about this, because their mama’s would
want to be the ones to tell their own girls. So when all the fifth grade girls were sent to watch
the "Menstruation Movie’ I was feeling pretty smug because I was the only one in the whole
class who knew all about "It" and what was going on. And I informed my friends "Oh yea, My
mom told me all about this already."

We were on our way home on the bus that day after school and of course we were all talking about the movie. One of the girls said, "I can’t believe we have to do this until we’re 45 years old!" And all of a sudden, it was like I had had a stroke. I couldn’t breathe. "FORTY FIVE YEARS, I yelled! You have got to be kidding me. I thought we only had to do it once, not once a month for forty five years!" I don’t know how I could have got my information so mixed up. How could I have been so excited about something that was not going to be any fun at all. Now I knew why everyone else was so bummed out about the whole thing. All I can think is that I had heard 'once', and stopped listening. I hadn’t heard, once a month, for the rest of your freaking life.
Kay reached her arm around my shoulder and said , "Oh, come on, it’ll be ok." I frowned at her and said, "I don’t want to talk about it."