I decided to double (triple? quadruple?) down on the insanity by: (1) Determining that I could not bring the HPT box home with me, so I would discard all the packaging before I left the store and shove the (unused, don't worry) pee sticks in my purse. I was going to toss everything in a parking lot trash can, but then I saw a bunch of trash cans helpfully placed inside the store...in Target...and somehow had no memory of how long it always takes me to get those packages open...so I spent several minutes in a busy store in lighting as bright as a movie set uselessly shredding at tiny pieces of the cellophane wrapping on a neon-pink box with the word "pregnancy" on it in letters you could read at a hundred feet. Two different men walked around me to toss something in the trash can during this endless process; neither made eye contact. (2) Forgetting that you're supposed to wait three minutes. This part isn't really important, but I have become so accustomed to the negative tests that I forget that there are special instructions for people who want a positive one. At least I got a control line this time. (3) Remembering several hours later that I should have waited three minutes, and fishing the whole mess out of the trash. Still negative. (4) Pondering the fact that you're supposed to wait 3-10 minutes, and I waited hours. I'm pretty sure once they show a + they stay that way (you know, I've heard), but the directions do say not to wait forever. And I remembered a post on 999 Reasons to Laugh at Infertility that lampooned RE-peeing on old HPTs. I've never done this. Who knows - I might never buy another package. (I have told myself this many times.) What the heck? It was still negative, of course.
The million-dollar question is why I would do this in the first place. I know, I know: this is an audience that can imagine innumerable insane - but compelling! - reasons to spend that $6.99. For two tests, by the way - so this insanity can repeat itself (without the HPT-Unwrapping of Frustration and Shame impromptu performance art in Target) at a later date.
In this case, despite its being CD8 (which is totally canceled out by the fact that I felt sad. You're following, right?), I was suddenly overcome by the concern that I have actually been pregnant almost constantly during the last six-plus years, and my occasionally varying periods (variances apparently catalyzed by various fertility drugs, surgeries, and invasive diagnostic procedures - or maybe, so I thought!) were not actually the resumption of menstruation but some sort of innocuous early-pregnancy bleeding, and if only I had taken an HPT in mid-"cycle" all these many times, I would have long ago realized that I was not infertile but a "habitual aborter" (for those who haven't read TCOYF, look it up) and sought early treatment to keep those pregnancies and I would have like five healthy kids now.
Sigh.
