Period.

**Explicit Content** When I was a girl the code name among my girlfriend's for having our period was "My Cousin Irma", as in I can't come over after school, My Cousin Irma is in town. We would use this euphemism not only in the schoolyard but even from the privacy of our rooms as we chatted on the phone as girlfriend's did. Even now that I'm talking to people about periods on a daily basis, I sometimes find myself searching for an alternate term for the exquisitely simple, seemingly universally understood, “period”. This speaks to the SFPP mission of eliminating the shame of menstruation. I have heard and employed a lifetime of everything from crass vulgarities (my bleeding pussy) to innocuous whispers (that time of the month) to describe menstruation. Why is it so difficult to say “I have my period”? Or is it just me?