The Menopause Witches of Eastwick

I attended my first official "grown up party" the other day, and I say it like that because I consider myself to be forever floating in an imaginary Peter Pan state, between a naughty child and a responsible adult with loads of money and fancy kitchen tiles. You might remember that special day you were allowed to upgrade your kiddie-table for the grown up-table at birthday parties, it felt sooo emancipating, like a huge rock in a greenhouse, right?

It doesn't work quite that way when you're 26 and end up at a party with 40 - 50 year olds, and yes, you can hold your liquor in a literary conversation, but when it comes to making wicker baskets you whimper like a child with no money in a candy shop. Instead you are left to study the other guests, and especially the middle-aged women.

There seems to be some sort of evil conspiracy going on in the world when it comes to middle-aged women. If you've ever been to an all-girls party for divorced women, you'll know what I'm talking about. When a young woman in her prime of life laughs, it is a beautiful and aesthetical thing, a light whisper of a chuckle, but when she hits her 40's, welcome the Balrog fire monster from Lord of the Rings! It's painful and scary to witness the hoarse gargle all those fairytales taught you to fear as a child, it's loud and shrieking and comes from the deep of the scary female sex, where all is hidden, but nothing revealed. Yet there you are, surrounded by chirping witches. Especially when the laughter happens in unison there will be chills down your back and through your marrow, it's like an over-dramatized replay of The Witches of Eastwick, only there are no ending credits, it just goes on and on. You try desperately to be unwitty and dull, but the nervous sweat on your upper lip makes them snarl for more. Dirty jokes fly across the table, they whip out their brooms and dance in a chilling noisy frenzy that could wake the dead...but only really wakes your dad...who fell asleep in the corner of the sofa.
Maybe it is a natural defence system evolution has given us women. When our husbands find younger wives, when our kids turn against us and choose all-green curtains instead of dotted ones, and we stumble in our own breasts getting out of bed.

Either way every woman in the world should be given a decibel measurer when hitting menopause. Evolution gave us loads of useless things, but we improve them all the time. Let's make it mandatory!