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careful period planner and knew that I would always have a good handle on them and always be prepared. I was sure that I was
not
going to be anything like my mother in that regard.
    Of course, the apple (smashed cherry, perhaps?) never falls far from the tree, does it? My gynecologisttells me it doesn’t happen to everyone, but clearly we McCarthy women are doubly cursed. It’s not that I lose track of when I’m getting them or that they are irregular (yet), but my periods became Carrie-at-the-prom heavy after I had Evan. (Google that movie and watch the blood drip down the walls!) I wish a red blotch on my skirt at church was the worst of my accidents.
    To date, here are a few examples of my syndrome in action:
Onstage
    During its Charlie Sheen years, I guest-starred on
Two and a Half Men
. I had several scenes with Charlie. No winging it allowed—I had to be funny and zany and sexy but all on cue, and I had to do it in front of a live studio audience. But on the day in question, my dam broke mid-scene.
    I had thought ahead, I swear I had. I was plugged up good with tampons, plus I was wearing a nighttime-strength maxi pad. But nothing ever happens quickly or totally on schedule when you’re shooting for TV (or movies), and I’d just been up on that stage too long. I knew when my defenses had been breached. If anythinglike this has happened to you, you know the feeling. You know you’ve started to color outside the lines. You know you have to get to the bathroom to refortify, but you also know that any movement to get
to
the bathroom could be disastrous.
    Until the take was over, my only option was to cross my legs and clench as hard as I could. And though I should have been focusing on my next line, I couldn’t concentrate on anything but what my excuse would be if blood spattered on the floor. I figured I could try to blame it on Charlie and claim he must have had a bloody nose. Given his lifestyle at the time, it was conceivable that people would believe me (Charlie himself might even have been easily fooled).
    Fortunately, I didn’t have to lie about Charlie’s drug-weakened nasal passages—the director said “cut” and I asked for a five-minute break to use the facilities.
    I obviously needed to get off the stage quickly, but I couldn’t take big steps and I couldn’t risk letting the studio audience see my ass; I had no idea what kind of red splotch would be blooming there. My only option was to shuffle offstage while continuing to face forward. Kind of like the characters on
South Park
. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle stage left, and I was out of there.
    Once I was safely in the bathroom I could assess the damage. As I’d thought, I was a mess. There wasno going back out there with the same pants on—they would need to be tossed. I stuck my head out the bathroom door and called for reinforcements: “Hello? Any female on the set, please, any female?” A young woman from the wardrobe department materialized, and I let her in. She went white when she saw the carnage. Sweet, naive, pre-motherhood girl that she was, she asked me if I’d just had a miscarriage.
    Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned … I
seriously
considered lying and telling her that she’d found me out. The sympathy would have been helpful at that point. But for once I wasn’t quick enough on my feet. I couldn’t tell that lie. I had to admit that I was just a gusher and couldn’t control my body for more than about twenty- or thirty-minute increments at this time of the month. I imagined she was making a mental note to never get older as she left to search for a replacement pair of pants.
    A few minutes later I was ready to go: I had the whole feminine products aisle tucked right where it all should go—a super-duper-duper tampon and, this time, two pads. I walked bowlegged back to the set and got on with the work of the day, asking for “pee breaks” as often as I could.
The Mile-High Club
    Okay, I told a white lie about never