Stuck on You

The National Car Test centre in Naas turned out to be an interesting place last week. All manner of human life was there. Firstly the two men who checked out the cars looked like they were each attempting a world record. One was a ridiculously tall mechanic and the other, a ridiculously small mechanic and both modelling more piercings than anyone on Miami Ink.

I was bringing the old jalopy in for another check over after it failed the initial test miserably. After a few minutes, a woman I know from town, Lynda, came in and sat beside me looking very flustered. “Did your car fail?” I asked her. “No, I’m going through the menopause” she replied. Poor girl. She was hot and bothered before she had even got the results of the NCT.

“I’ve been so moody” she contuniued, looking left and right to make sure that the mechanics weren’t listening. “I was getting so hot and sweaty at night too” she continued, “and I had no sex drive at all” she finished up. The NCT waiting room was freezing cold. I could have done with a hot flush there and then to see me through the next half an hour. I opened a packet of digestive biscuits that I happened to have in my bag and offered her one. She shook her head. “No thanks. I have been putting on weight too which doesn’t help matters”. I nodded sympathetically; I ate far too many digestive biscuits this year.

“Guess what I've done?” she went on as I ate my digestive wishing that I had a cup of tea to go with it. “I went into the health food shop and found an amazing thing". She looked left and right. “I got a magnet,” she pointed downward. “I’m wearing a magnet in my knickers. What do you think of that?” I choked on my second biscuit. 

“In your knickers? Are you sure that is where it is supposed to go?” I asked, worried that she may not have read the small print right in her hormonal state. “Yes. Right here, in the front of my knickers. You wouldn’t not know it was there at all would you? I can’t even feel it. It just sits there all day.” The very tall mechanic with a huge metal hoop hanging out of his nose walked by. To add to my stress, he was  carrying a bag of spanners. Lynda quickly put her handbag on her lap. I winched and shut my eyes. 

"Guess what?" she continued when he was out of earshot.  "IT WORKS. I am now sleeping at night. I’m still getting the night sweats but they are not half as bad. And I am losing a bit of weight too which is a bonus.”  "How big is it?" Lynda looked at my digestive biscuits. "The size of a jammy dodger" she said, adding, "It has changed my life. They use them on hormonal horses too"

Was she MAD? What about the potential hazards of wearing a magnet in your knickers? Had Lynda thought his through? Wouldn't it set off the alarm at the airport? Wouldn't it show up on the high tech body scanner machines that they have? Surely you would be taken aside and searched? Might they mistake the magnet as being a component of a bomb? Might you be accused of being a terrorist? Worst of all, what if it fell out at mass - how would she explain that to the priest?

The tall mechanic with piercings came and told me, in his heavy Russian accent, that my car had passed the National Car Test.  Hooray! What a great feeling. Better than childbirth. The 'Stressmobile' would be on the road for another year. 

I left Lynda with the handbag on her lap and decided that I would invite her round for tea the following week to discuss the subject of menopause even further. It's all ahead of me after all, so I might as well be prepared. 

I sent her a text a week later. “Would you like to come round for some tea and sympathy?”  Lynda replied “Yes”. I sent another text, “Should I hide the cutlery? LOL! Wouldn’t want to trigger off  your magnet.” She replied swiftly,

“Don’t joke, I was just hanging some washing over the metal airer in the kitchen and my magnet got stuck to it. Whole thing fell on me. Injured. OUCH” 

I knew it. She was an accident waiting to happen. I suggest that anyone wearing such a menopausal magnet in their knickers should treat themselves to a wooden airer. It might be safer all round.