My mornings are usually pretty monotonous. I wake up from my plush, “girly” bed adorned with fancy pillows in a roomful of romantic posters of various couples engaged in kisses, embraces and mutual adoration. I enter my even more girly bathroom to wash my face among an array of products (perfumes, scented lotions, loofahs and makeup) from which to choose. Then, I enter my walk-in closet to pick out that day’s wardrobe selection. Oh, how fun it is to be a girl!

However, today was slightly different. As I walked into my bathroom, eager to begin my customary primping session, I looked into my mirror – horrified – as I realized that today, I was a male. A male! Complete with thick, ugly facial hair and hair in places that, if I was still the beautiful, clean, perfect female I was the previous night, would probably die if I saw. Not to mention the most obvious difference of all male attributes I noticed had now graced my once beautiful kind - the male ego.

Although I couldn’t quite pinpoint what awful thing in my past I must have done to deserve this, as I looked at my new body, I felt manly. I looked around my old room and thought, first and foremost, “These pillows have to go.” Mentally, I made up a things-to-do list. At the top: re-decorate room. I wondered where I could find posters of Playboy models and sports heroes. I looked at the lame posters of couples who were sickeningly in love and the only thought that went through my head was, “I could totally be those guys.” Weird, I also had the sudden urge to burp, scratch myself and crush a beer can against my forehead. I decided I’d do that later.

As I sat to think a moment and reflect on how much this change was going to alter my life and my future plans, I realized it might not affect them all that much. In fact, as a girl, I always had this secret desire to enlist in the army or take up a Tae Kwon Do class. But, I was ultra womanly and figured I’d better stick with fashion design or child-bearing or something, so I decided I would get a degree, get a guy and settle down. Deep down, I had always been a bit of a tomboy, hidden beneath the pretext of a very feminine façade.

Not anymore. Today I was going to do all of the “male” activities only we can get away with. Yet, as I became thrilled to head out into my new world and try the jobs society deemed “OK” for my gender, I shamefully realized that I would have to give up my love for shopping and talking with my girlfriends over a nice dinner for hours on end.

Even though I suddenly felt “bigger, badder and better” than the world, this intrinsic urge to walk down Melrose Avenue with 25 shopping bags and a cute designer purse in hand wasn’t fading. Oh, how I will miss that.
Before I thought about heading out the door in my new body, however, I felt an abrupt sense of fear. How are others going to perceive me now? True, I may have more opportunities to make it big in the business world; I mean that’s what society expects from my gender anyway, right? I no longer have the proverbial glass-ceiling hindering me from moving up the corporate ladder being that I am no longer a woman and that encumbrance no longer applies.

And what about dating? As I recalled my life as a female, all I had to do was look pretty, talk politely, occasionally cook dinner and the guy took care of the rest. As a girl, I was taken care of by my parents, my boyfriends and practically everyone around me.

Suddenly, I felt this overwhelming sense of responsibility and financial burden since people were going to expect that from now on I foot the bills, pay for dates and essentially become the breadwinner. Reality set in as I realized I could no longer ask daddy for money. And, damn! I would have to get my own place and start hitting the gym. No chick is going to want a scrawny boyfriend who lives with his parents.

Consequently, all of the emotional aspects of being a girl had diminished along with my wonderful figure and styled hair. Pragmatically, I could no longer cry at the close of a wonderfully sappy movie (yet another interest that still lingered from my pre-male days). I couldn’t attend to a friend in need and sincerely empathize while they cried on my shoulder – I’d have to take them out for beers instead. Finally, I couldn’t ogle an adorable, gurgling infant and approach it with reverence without someone thinking I was a pedophile.

As females, we complain about our jeans being too snug and feeling bloated. We grumble about having too many “feelings” and about being too emotional. We gripe about how we are the ones with all of the bad luck: oppression, childbirth, periods, and the unfair truth that men age better. But I would have to disagree now.
As a male, we simply can’t complain. We are told to “Suck it up,” and “Be a man." And we will never be familiar with the alleged mother-child bond that only a woman gets to experience throughout her parental lifetime.

I stop two steps short of my front door – only a minute ago ready to take on the “man’s world” right outside.
Something tells me that this change won’t last for long, so I lay down on my amazing, girly, plush bed adorned with the fancy pillows.

I close my eyes and think about how much I would miss being pampered by my boyfriend, favored by society and being "daddy’s little girl.” I come to the conclusion that I just won't make a good man. So, I force myself into sleep, hoping that by the time I awaken I will be my emotional, sometimes self-deprecating, PMS-ing, high-maintenance, dependent self.

And I think to myself, “Women really have it good.”