Oops.

My fear of getting pregnant initially outweighed my desire for mental well-being. After all, I reasoned, an unwanted pregnancy would be about ten times as bad for my mental health than any havoc my birth control could wreak.

Right.

This morning I began hysterically crying at work—not even for the proverbial no good reason but for absoltuely no reason at all. Not wanting to advertise my insanity, I ran to the bathroom to hide.

I sniffled in a bathroom stall all the while chanting I will make an appointment with my gyno tomorrow, I will make an appointment with my gyno tomorrow.

After a few minutes I popped out of the stall, ready to be normal again. Unfortunately, my reflection did not agree with this plan.

I am not and have never been a cute crier—my face gets red and blotchy, my eyes become three sizes smaller, and my hair actually seems to absorb grease from the surrounding area. It is a highly unattractive sight, one that clearly signals that I have been crying and makes me appear as though the world is ending, or at least my world, or at least the world that contains showers and good hygiene.

I splashed some water on my face and went back into the corner bathroom stall, prepared to wait my appearance out.

But how long can a person sit in a bathroom stall with no need to actually use the toilet and no reading material? When that person is me, not long.

I emerged from the safety of the bathroom, a fact I almost instantly regretted since the first person I encountered--an older, mommyish character--exclaimed “CB, what’s wrong?” and promptly hugged me.

Naturally, this sent me into hysterics.

“What’s wrong?” The (very senior, very respectable) woman repeated as I hurriedly disengaged myself from the awkward co-worker hug.

“Nothing.” I knew I wouldn’t get away with this, but I had to at least try.

“Did something go wrong here?”

“No,” I said, a bit indignantly. Being the girl who cries at work is bad enough, one doesn't need to be the girl that cries about work too.

“You can tell me,” she said, with a look so sympathetic and sweet that I was suddenly afraid I would tell her the truth. While the truth wasn't terrible, it seemed ill-advised to speak to a woman in a skirt suit about mental troubles presumably caused by birth control.

"CB?" she prodded.

“My dad’s in the hospital,” I blurted out.

Fuck.

Once you say something like that, you can’t take it back. You can’t say “Just kidding, it’s really my birth control, my dad’s not in the hospital, hahahahahahaha.” You have to go with it, and say repeatedly “Thanks for being so nice, but I don’t really want to talk about it, I’m sure he’ll be fine too.”

I am justifying this by telling myself that since my dad actually was in the hospital last year and I told no one, this is more like a belated sympathy gathering than an outright lie. I still feel bad though, not so much for the woman, or any other co-workers who may hear this bit of false news, but for my father, whose formerly quite real illness I am now using to explain away my hopefully-birth- control-related-but-possibly-just-plain-crazy crying jags. It’s just wrong.

So, in conclusion, something must be done before I exploit any other family members. I will make an appointment with my gyno tomorrow.