The Pregnancy, Menopause, Time-warp Mystery Possibly Solved

I haven’t had a period. For a long time. This, I thought, could mean a number of things:
I can't count
It’s the menopause
I’m pregnant
I’m living in a time-warp

The number of things being 4. There have been another number of things (17) that led me to think that number 4 is the most likely occurrence. I must be living in a time-warp. This is because I have turned into a teenager with strange desires to:
1. Dance
2. Think Rude thoughts
3. Sing
4. Fall in love
5. Play the guitar
6. Wonder what people look like naked
7. Speak my mind at inappropriate moments
8. Think far too much about having sex
9. Dye my hair purple
10. Wonder what I look like naked
11. Have tattoos of turbo-bees placed upon my body
12. Have tattoos of turbo-bees placed upon other people’s bodies
13. Not do my homework
14. Wonder what people are like in bed
15. Swear
16. Wonder what I am like in bed
17.Conduct my whole life from my bed
This seems to me like a LARGE number of things.

Whereas if I were pregnant the number of strange desires would be considerably fewer:
1. To sleep
2. To sleep some more
3. To throw up

If it were the menopause, from my scant personal experience and a quick perusal of Net Doctor, the collection of strange desires might only include:
1. Opening windows
2. Taking my clothes off
3. Breaking my own bones

So, the evidence above definitely led me to the time-warp conclusion because the number 17 is a lot bigger than the number 4. This is statistics for you.

But I am a woman of a scientific bent, and 98% of all statistics are made up, so I decided to use some more empirical evidence before publishing the results.

Thus I found myself in the medical sort of aisle of my local ASDA. As is usual with these sorts of experiences I stood gazing at the shelf containing far too many products. I eschewed the fluorescent pink mouthwashes, cures for cystitis and unknown, unknowable and unpronounceable herbal remedies. Finally I narrowed my choices down to:
1. A pregnancy testing kit
2. A menopause testing kit
3. A Mars bar
At a loss as to what to choose I turned to my sixteen-year-old daughter.
‘Buy them all, you’ll need them,’ she said. Ah, from the mouths of babes…
‘Do you want anything from here?’ I asked. I may be in a time-warp but I am nevertheless a concerned mother. She added to our basket a large packet of condoms, a medium sized packet of tampons, a smallish packet of aspirin and another Mars Bar.

The boy at the checkout had the decency to look a tad embarrassed as he bleeped through this comprehensive and totally confusing collection of items of a womanly nature. Anyone analysing the contents of that basket could only conclude that I was about to give a demonstration of everything of a messy nature that could happen to a woman in any given lifetime. Oh, except we didn’t have any breast pads.

So, arriving home, there was nothing left to do aside from piss on various items, wait three minutes and inspect them for thin red lines. Sadly there was no test available for the time-warp theory so I had to invent one.

The results are in:
1. No I am not pregnant (thank God for that)
2. Yes it could be the menopause (thank another God for that)
3. Yes, I am living in a time warp (thank a God that used to exist (but may not any more) for that)

Of course unless I got the little sticks mixed up due to the time-warp effect…