You don’t have to be female to have firsthand knowledge of a woman’s monthly cycle, any more than you need a driver’s license to have firsthand knowledge of a car wreck.
Allow me to be the first to say:
Best. Analogy. Ever.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050429.html
Cecil, you rock!
I’ll second your commendation there, but can we talk about Sluggo’s illustration?
What the heck is going on there, there’s a missing can of beer so she’s drunk and that makes her wave a tampon in the air while scratching with a spatula or something? Why do her boobies look like icicles? What’s the mystery belly bulge about, or that poodle hairdo?
I don;'t think she’s scratching with a spatula, I think she’s pulling up her undies – that’s the elastic band. Slug almost always draws female breasts to “look like icicles,” musta been some sort of childhood trauma or something. As to the belly and hairdo, well, I can only say that Slug’s drawings very often passeth all understanding.
I have not met Slug. Ed warns me that I really, really don’t want to.
Huh…I thought she was tugging at the waistband of her granny panties for some reason. Now I can’t tell.
That is a terrible illustration though. I didn’t even notice it until you said that.
Darn it…that’s what I get for being so slow today! I swear, CK’s reply wasn’t there when I was typing mine. I just got distracted for a few minutes. 
Ok, I can buy that she’s tugging at the granny panties…because tampon insertion so commonly takes place in the kitchen?
Sluggo really scares me sometimes.
I think she is returning to the kitchen from the bathroom (note the open door behind her). She is pulling up her granny panties while noticing that she is holding a tampon instead of a beer can . . . which suggests an old joke.
I don’t think I want to hear the punchline of this joke …
I recall a book (big lies or something like that) wherein a study of 100 women over a six month period was conducted. Women were asked to record daily their feelings, weight gain, water retention, bloating, etc. As part of this study their periods were tracked as well. The study was never described as being pms or period related. The findings showed that woman frequently have these complaints/issues at times and they were not more frequent during the traditional pms phase. Hmmmm.
Michael
PMS isn’t a problem, only the two weeks before and the two weeks after.