I was fresh out of the shower, maybe 72 seconds or so, and I was already drenched with sweat. It confused me. I couldn’t tell if the water was dripping or my sweat was dripping, and I actually considered licking myself to figure it out. Instead I put my hair up in its least flattering style: in a green ponytail holder, grabbed from a junk drawer, with a purple headband, grabbed from a junk drawer—both grabbings, obviously, done without looking.

I looked in the mirror. I was clearly a maniac. My pupils were the size of blueberries, I was wet and flushed, and because I was alarmed by the sight of myself looking alarmed, even my nostrils looked shocked.

It was 6:15, and the dinner guests were due at 6:30. I had to get out of my apartment.

My anxiety takes many forms, but often—and we needn’t get into why this is, because then my shrink wouldn’t have any fun—it’s about pregnancy. What if I’m pregnant? Practically speaking, of course, there are only two answers to this boring refrain: 1) have a baby, or 2) have an abortion. That’s it. One or two, A or B, eeney or meeney. There is no mo.

But each month I freak out—despite the fact that I’ve freaked out the month before, despite the fact that I take the pill more regularly than the pope takes communion, despite the fact that some women can’t even get pregnant at my age.

And at 6:15 on a Monday night before the arrival of dinner guests, I was freaking out yet again—I had to know. Right now.

I burst out of the bathroom, looking as though I’d just had an unpleasant encounter with a fire hydrant.
“OhmygodIhavetogotocvsrightnowitsreallyimportantitlljusttakeafewminutes,” I said to my boyfriend, who looked afraid.

“Just go,” he said.

In the car I panicked in a different way, fostered in part by the dispassionate delivery of NPR. Didn’t the people at National Public Radio understand what was going on? What if CVS didn’t have any pregnancy tests left? Oddly enough, that had happened to me twice earlier in the day. Both Walgreens and Hahnemann Hospital’s pharmacy were sold out of them. For an anxious person prone to magical thinking, it was like the Hindenburg.

But at CVS, as always, everything was right with the world. I felt like a hero in a Western striding into a saloon, one hand on my keychain with my CVS card, the other on my wallet.

The automatic doors parted for me. The air conditioning chilled my sweat and shower water so I was crisp and cool. I pushed my cart down the aisle—well known, of course, from prior frenzied visits—and felt like patting it fondly on the rump, as though it were my horse. It was the kind of elation a true panic sufferer knows and loves: the edge of relief.

But when I saw how many pregnancy tests CVS had to offer, the edge of relief receded. I literally watched it go. Goodbye, my sweet edge! How could I pick the right test?

There’s the early- results test and the stick test and the cup test and the digital readout test and the plus-sign test and the test shaped like the state of Texas and the one that smells like peaches and the test that says, “You’re screwed!” when it gives you your results. There’s the test that plays checkers with you while you wait for the
results and the test that brews coffee and eats a scone and the test that just turns into a baby and starts wailing and pooping in its diaper.

Which do you buy?

If you’re in the midst of a panic attack, you buy them all.

I knew it was insane to buy 20 pregnancy tests, but I couldn’t control myself. I had the whole conversation you’d have with a rational person, but the irrational person always wins.

Rational person: “Buying all this is crazy.”

Irrational person: “But you are crazy.”

Game, set, match.

I was hoping the cashier might save me, but she was on her cell phone. It seemed she was able to do everything—discuss her relationship, give herself a manicure, plan her retirement fund—except pay attention to me and the $85 I was spending. I could’ve been wearing an electric cat on my face, and she wouldn’t have noticed me. I slunk away with my enormous bag, ashamed in front of myself.

When I got home, the guests still hadn’t arrived. I had time to do the cup test, which seems the most reliable. You pee into the cup, then use the little dropper to place three droplets into the felt-like panel. Then you stand and watch it for three minutes while you twirl your hair and hum nervously and say, “Come on, stupid-stupidface.” After
you’ve washed your hands, of course.

I don’t have to tell you how this ends. I wasn’t pregnant. But I was relieved. The edge of relief became a ledge, and then my apartment. It was delightful not to be pregnant—again. And after a major anxiety attack, that’s really all you can ask for.

[Illustration by Alex Fine]