I’ve been sick this week. I don’t have the flu or strep throat. It’s not the plague or The Black Death… I’ve had a cold. A low grade fever, the beginnings of an ear infection and a relentlessly hacking cough. You know, the kind that makes your head pound? A cough that hits so hard that you pull a muscle? That gravelly itch in your throat that persists until you are in the throes of a convulsive cough attack that leaves you breathless… That’s the cough I’ve had this week. So… the cough isn’t bad enough, the universe thought it would be funny if the cough made me leak too! I mean yes, my eyes water, but that’s not the leaking I am referring to. Yup, I pee’d a little.

I didn’t invent this affliction. In fact, my mom used to warn me about it. As did her mother before her! She’d sneeze and then squeeze her legs together. I’d laugh and she’d say “Just you wait!” Well, here it is mom! Two kids and 40 years and I’m coughing the piss outta me! Wearing a pad to work incase the cough gets me, making sure my bladder is completely empty before getting into the car for my commute… these are the thoughts that have partially consumed me over the last few days. Thanks, universe! Hilarious!

So, I casually mention this to my husband. I mean, let’s be real, he watched a kid exit my vagina and is no stranger to my bodily fluids but, somehow the idea that I leaked a little freaked him out. Ummm… you better step with that bullshit double standard, yo! I listen to and smell your farts by the dozen! I’ve actually SAT in pee that you’ve neglected to clear from the seat, I’ve slept in the wet spot!!! And you have the nerve to turn your nose up to a few drops of pee that don’t come anywhere near you??? I leak because I pushed your watermelons out of my lemon, bitch and I am not sorry for a little spillage.

Ladies! I share this dirty little secret loud and proud so that you may feel less embarrassed by these things. By all means, do your kegels and do them often, but if you leak a little, know that you are normal.

Swearing Mom out.