The Perimenopause House of Horrors

Welcome to the Perimenopause House of Horrors! Prepare to endure an onslaught of uncomfortable symptoms signalling the waning days of your fertility and the icy chill of sociosexual irrelevance! Are you brave enough? Actually, it doesn’t matter—the doors are locked behind you, and you’re stuck here for eight to ten years. We don’t make the rules!

What’s that? You don’t know how you wound up here? You were young very recently? Your protests are in vain! Your purgatory in this frightful place will end only when you make your first purchase from Eileen Fisher.

We begin in the Terrifying Temperature Dysregulation room! Feeling chilly? Or are you suddenly boiling from the inside out? Perhaps you’re somehow both at the same time?! Maybe it’s the radiator, maybe it’s your thyroid—who can say for sure?

Next, make your way through the Dusty Hallway of Vaginal Discomfort to the Theatre of Humiliating Targeted Ads. You’ll cringe at images of sexual-wellness supplements, reading glasses, calcium chews, gardening overalls, and Gen X memes—and, yes, they’re all talking about you!

Now brace yourself for the Room of Technological Torture. Think you know what scary is? Just wait until you hear your earliest Facebook posts read aloud by a group of cackling teen-agers who are too young to know who Kurt Cobain is.

Feeling woozy? We’re just getting started. Up ahead is the Haunted Carrousel of Menstrual Irregularity, the Shrieking Spectre of Chronic Acid Reflux, and the Mammogram Machine Possessed by Poltergeists.

While you cautiously tiptoe along in your Hokas, you’ll hear the eerie creak of your aging joints, and shiver at the tickle of shedding hairs as your once lustrous mane thins. Turn away from the tempting buffet of wines and cheeses—they are poison for your middle-aged digestive system.

As you near the exit, you’ll find a place to rest—the graveyard of your youth. Here, those who remember dialling *69 rest their weary bones. But when the moon is full their spirits rise for a spectral gathering. Watch as they mourn their now irrelevant cultural touchstones: Janeane Garofalo, blazers with hoodies under them, and printing out directions from MapQuest.

Will you be one of the few hardy souls who survive this ghastly ordeal? Only time will tell. But those who do are rewarded richly: Eileen Fisher makes incredibly comfortable pants. ♦