Spare a thought for the forgotten victims of horizontal couch-related imbibing syndrome
- DAVID PENBERTHY
- From: Sunday Mail (SA)
- June 14, 2014 10:00PM
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/david-penberthy-spare-a-thought-for-the-forgotten-victims-...
WE owe Lisa Curry-Kenny a debt of gratitude for her brave admission that she has been suffering from Rushing Woman’s Syndrome.
This crippling condition placed great stress on her now failed marriage. This is because, in her own words, she was “an irritable cow” who was cranky, crotchety, and often couldn’t stop nagging her former husband Grant Kenny, whose iron man status offered scant protection from her unyielding domestic assault, although it might explain in hindsight why he was so fond of kayaking out to sea as fast as he could.
Curry-Kenny made the admission on that great clearing house of ideas, A Current Affair, on Thursday night .
Sadly she received a fair and reasonable hearing. Rather than having to answer any suggestion that Rushing Woman’s Syndrome was laughable Californian psychobabble, or perhaps more bluntly, **bleep**, she instead prattled on unchallenged about the horrors of this hitherto non-existent disease.
This allowed her to turn a pattern of behaviour she had arguably chosen into an affliction she simply couldn’t avoid, and is now treating with something called a “happy hormone supplement” which she takes with her morning smoothies.
With any luck this supplement will soon be on the PBS and subsidised by the taxpayers, providing long-overdue relief to all those other irritable cows out there and the brow-beaten blokes who live with them.
This is some of what she said.
“The Rushing Woman Syndrome is absolutely me. It’s been me for a long time. I didn’t want to seem like I was the only cow on earth, but it always felt like that to me.
“I had days where I just felt completely out of control. I was angry, irritable, moody, cried for no reason, and wanted to kill the world.
“On behalf of me and all women in Australia, I want to say sorry to all the guys, cause they cop it, the men cop it, it’s the men that are closest in your life, and ...they don’t even have to do anything, yet they can’t do anything right or wrong ... in our eyes they’re the worst person in the world,” she said.
“Sorry guys, but I’m glad there’s a name for it now and I’m glad we’ve got a solution.”
We should all be glad we’ve got the solution because it sets a terrific precedent for other forms of behaviour.
For years so many men I know, this one included, have suffered in silence from a condition known as horizontal couch-related imbibing syndrome.
Sometimes this condition is so intense that you feel like you have got a gigantic weight pressing down upon your chest. You find yourself stuck, just lying straight ahead for hours at at a time.
You need to have something extremely cold in your hand – yet oddly, something warm nearby, like nachos, or maybe some barbecued chicken wings and a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce.
Sufferers find themselves literally pinned on their backs to the couch, often on consecutive days, usually Saturdays and Sundays, even also for a few hours on a Friday night.
Symptoms include belching, excessive testicular self-examination and irrational and frequent shouting outbursts, similar to those experienced by sufferers of Tourette’s Syndrome.
Phrases such as BALLLLLLLLL, HIGHHHHH, and AREYAFUGGINBLINDYAWHITEM...OT are commonly heard. At its worst, sufferers end the day in tears and talking to themselves, muttering incomprehensible sentences such as “but we were up at three quarter time and we absolutely threw it away I don’t know why I bloody bother” and then perpetrate low-level acts of violence on a cushion or a remote control. Sometimes they will even kick the cat.
Horizontal couch-related imbibing syndrome often presents with another more common ailment, domestic deafness, in which male sufferers will blithely agree to perform tasks they have no intention of completing, such as fixing the hinge on the side gate which has been in a state of disrepair since 2007.
“Hey honey, the dog has been digging down the side again. Maybe if you have a moment you could have a bit of a look at the gate?”
“Yep hon I’m on it ... BALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.”
There is, or should be, a condition for every domestic occasion, such as leaving the toilet seat up disorder, not knowing what grade the kids are in disease, groceryphobia or forgetting your birthday syndrome, which is not that serious a complaint as wives eventually catch that one too.
There’s a condition psychiatrists define as a “dissociative fugue”, a personality disorder whereby sufferers become forgetful, confused and have a sudden desire to travel.
This one could help the next time you find yourself mysteriously transported to the TAB or going to Bunnings for no good reason on the same afternoon your mother-in-law is coming over for a cup of tea.
Confess to any of the above conditions and you can not only win yourself a bit of clemency on the domestic front, you might even get a start on A Current Affair, and everyone feels better about themselves. Problem solved.
In all seriousness though, maybe the takeout message from all this is that to keep the magic alive, it’s vital to set aside some regular “us” time.
Time when you just look at each other, smile, touch, and most of all, talk. Because in love, as in life, there will be ups and downs, and times when BALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL ...
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