Oh, the power of a menopausal woman! No, I’m not talking about brute strength or the power of a sharp tongue. I’m talking about energy kind of power, like the power that comes from coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric facilities, wind farms, and solar panels. Power.
We have scientists and inventors and politicians and developers searching the world and their brains for a plentiful, low-cost, renewable, clean-burning, easily accessible, environmentally-friendly energy source. And in the classic “end of story” tradition, the solution has been in their own backyards the entire time: Menopausal women.
Where do menopausal women and power intersect? Hot flashes.
If you have every experienced a hot flash or witnessed a woman having one, you know it represents power. Somewhere deep inside the woman, a mysterious energy source turns itself on without warning and immediately overheats, sending waves of unbearable warmth to every corner of her body. Her insides afire and her skin burning, the woman begins stripping off whatever clothes modesty allows, but still blushes bright red as a layer of perspiration coats her body. She fans herself if she can, or seeks the cool air outside her front door or inside her freezer door. Then just as suddenly, the heat source turns itself off and the woman finds herself half-naked, shivering with cold, in need of a shower, and embarrassed as hell.
Now what if scientists could develop a way to capture that power mysteriously generated by that unknown energy source deep inside menopausal women? Why, the world would have a fabulous, almost limitless new fuel source.
Just imagine if that energy could be channeled into a discreet power storage unit that a menopausal woman could wear tucked under her clothes. The minute she feels a hot flash starting, the woman pushes a little button and all that energy flows into the power storage unit. At the end of the day, she attaches to a compatible unit in her home, and voila! The hot flashes provide enough energy to power the home for a day or more.
The same system could be used in the workplace. A woman wears the unit to bed and each time the inevitable hot flash wakes her, she pushes the little button, stores the power, and then plugs into a compatible unit the next day at her workplace. Hot flashes from multiple women could power computers, phone systems, lights, air conditioners, etc.
You think I am joking? I kid you not. If we can send a man (notice, we’ve never sent a woman) to the moon, we should be able to harness the power of hot flashes. If we do, we may never send a man to the moon again. Only menopausal women will go. They will be the only ones able to reliably serve as their own continuous power sources.
Not only can menopausal women solve our world’s energy problem, harnessing the power of their hot flashes can solve some of society’s ills too.
For example, men would no longer be so likely to toss their aging wives aside for younger trophy wives if they see the financial value in the form of energy savings those aging wives represent. Trophy wives may look more attractive but can they deliver the amps of their older predecessors? No way.
Job discrimination against older women would cease as employers recognize the impact hiring older women can have on reducing overhead costs. Women who chose the Mommy Track and stayed home to raise their children at the risk of losing their careers will be welcomed back into the workplace with open arms and their own personal power storage hook-ups.
Couples will no longer travel to China to adopt unwanted baby girls in that country, because there will no longer be a surplus of adoptable baby girls. China will encourage couples to keep their daughters and nurture them so that in a few decades China, with its vast population, will have the corner on the world’s energy market when all those baby girls grow up and become menopausal women.
The world would no longer be dependent on the Mideast’s oil, as cars, buses, trains, planes all switch from being powered by petroleum and oil to the power generated by hot flashes.
Still, I detect your skepticism. It can never be, you say. Never say never. What did the nay-sayers say to Alexander Graham Bell? To Thomas Edison? To the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford and Steve Jobs?
A menopausal woman having a hot flash is a force to be reckoned with. Many of us don’t have to wait for menopause to have hot flashes. We start as early as our thirties, during peri-menopause. And many of us continue to have hot flashes long after menopause is over. In fact, sometimes that’s when the most powerful hot flashes occur— hot flashes capable of powering multiple homes or offices for weeks on end.
Just ask my sister. She finished menopause some time ago, yet recently had a hot flash so powerful that it set off her smoke alarm. She happened to be standing under it during the hot flash and heaved a large sigh of frustration as she glanced heavenward for help. Her breath was so hot as it wafted upward, it set that alarm to ringing.
NEVER underestimate the power of a woman.
