The P:V Ratio Explained

Though I love to write and find pleasure in all things creative, I enjoy math. I know, weird, right?

Well, perhaps I should restate. I enjoyed math until it turned on me.

Let me start by saying: The P:V ratio is no laughing matter.

Too much V and everyone is having their period on the third Tuesday of the month and lunchtime conversations revolve around the latest Fa-La-La Lifetime movie watched, weddings/babies/kids, the most recent episode of the Kardashians, and the latest finds on Pinterest or some popular Internet retail site. Swing the other way and you are hotly debating fantasy football picks, who is going to make it to the SuperBowl, and enduring one-minute-long lunchtime dares based on viral Internet challenges with Saltines or ground cinnamon.

Of course, the perfect balance of P:V is hard to achieve and when having children, it’s a crap shoot. But I have friends with one boy and one girl demonstrating it is possible.

However, I have a husband and four young boys. For those of you keeping track (or those that struggle with math), that means 5P:1V.

I see this as proof that my husband doesn’t love me and that God is male. Apparently, I was put on this earth to wipe pee off the floor around a toilet, spray a bleach and water combination into athletic shoes, buy food in bulk, and spend most of my weekends watching sports. I’m watching the growth of my moustache and chin whiskers carefully and will admit myself to a recovery center immediately if I start grabbing my crotch and begin each and every joke with the words “fart” or “poop”.

I have no built in mani/pedi buddy or someone who wants to go shopping… for anything. When I buy back-to-school clothes, I go to Sports Authority and Old Navy. While the simplicity of this may seem like a dream to those with girls, I’d like the opportunity… just once… to buy something other than athletic shorts and sports t-shirts. Just sayin’.

I have four sweaty, dirty, stinky beings that will only get sweatier, dirtier and stinkier as they grow and age. And don’t get me started on puberty and boys and their Ps.

And the hard truths facing me down the road? I will never be the Mother of the Bride. Instead, I have the potential to be the [insert sinister music] Mother In Law four times over.

This saddens me, but not to the extent that I’m willing to have another baby (which would be twin boys given my husband’s hideous track record and my “advanced maternal age”) to get that elusive V.

And so, simple math is no longer the pleasure it once was. I find myself staring into the face of insanity on a daily basis, mumbling about bleaching athletic socks and smelly shin guards, obscene volumes of afterschool snacks, and an inability to use toilet paper properly or (let’s be honest) at all.

I’m not asking for pity. Just merely trying to explain why I may twitch when I see your daughter’s cute outfit or your matching manicures; why I spend the entire holiday season watching horrible Lifetime and Hallmark holiday movies; and why I can eat six Saltines in 60 seconds without drinking anything at all.

It’s that damn P:V ratio.