So far, Kari Epstein, 47, has had only one hot flash.
She is among 40 million American women who will stop producing estrogen in the next 20 years, ending their reproductive cycles. But Epstein is the only woman I’ve met who has turned menopause into a game. Epstein has sold more than 5,000 copies of “HotFlash! The Menopause Game,” available at hotflashgame.com for $29.98. It’s just the thing for middle-aged women to play over a bottle of wine as they lament the inevitable.
“I made this game up between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on mornings when I had insomnia,” Epstein said. “That’s another lovely menopausal thing to deal with.”
And I’m sure it makes a swell 50th birthday present, too.
Denver marketing consultant Brent Green, author of “Marketing to Leading- Edge Baby Boomers,” says a boomer turns 50 every eight seconds. Since 51 percent are female, and the median age for menopause is 47.5 years, I’m guessing there’s a new case of menopause in this country every 15 seconds. This explains the popularity of “Menopause: The Musical.”
“There’s a quiet revolution underway,” said Green. “Women are reinventing middle age by embracing what life is handing them and making more out of it.”
Like many entrepreneurs, Epstein has been alone with her vision since having her only hot flash during a 2002 Cape Cod vacation. She is a cellist who has performed in symphony orchestras and a mother of two in Denver’s upper-crust Hilltop neighborhood. Her husband, prominent Denver divorce lawyer Steven Epstein, can’t really relate to “HotFlash!” And her friends don’t quite get it either.
“Mostly, they thought it was just really bizarre,” Kari Epstein said. “Some women told me I should be ashamed of myself.”
But I, for one, understand the creative process. So I invited Epstein to my office last week for a game. She told me I was the only man who had ever played “HotFlash!” with her. Not even her husband would roll these dice.
Two of my female co-workers also played, but I soon learned that this was not a good game to play at the office.
Game cards instruct players to “Lick the rim of your glass suggestively” or, “Using your feminine wiles, seduce the player on your left.” I am pretty sure the HR department would not have fully appreciated my “feminine wiles,” even in the name of honest journalistic research.
The object of the game is to stay out of PMS Purgatory, Weepy Way and Lustless Lane, and end up in Hormone Free Haven. Each game piece carried a decidedly female theme, including “chocolate” and “wine glass” for the meek and “birth control pills” and “tampon” for the bold.
I decided to be the “diaphragm,” even knowing that in a post-menopausal world I would no longer be needed.
There are many therapeutic and educational elements to this game, which are missing in polite society. “A lot of women don’t have any knowledge about this,” Epstein said. “I thought this would be more fun than sitting alone with a book.”
One game card reads: “In tribal societies, men believed that the sight of a menstruating woman could ruin their farms or make milk go sour. Women were banished to menstrual huts.” Oh, how far we’ve come. Today, menstruation results in men being banished … to doghouses.
Part of the game reminded one of my female colleagues of “Chutes and Ladders,” without the ladders. I kept landing on “fallopian tube,” which set me back several spaces and forced me to relive a past trauma. You see, the last time I slid down a fallopian tube, I was just a tiny egg. I was attacked by a relentless band of tadpoles. And I was never the same again.
In the end, the game left me wanting to know more about menopause. For example, why do they call it menopause and not womenopause?
“You’re going to be facing male menopause,” Green told me. “Knowing you, you’re probably in the middle of it. It’s called andropause. … I have a colleague (Jed Diamond) who’s written a book called ‘The Irritable Male Syndrome.’ Men react to the changing hormonal levels by becoming depressed or angry.”
Hey, to heck with you, Green. I am not irritable, depressed or angry. I don’t have time to argue with you about it, either. I just got an idea for a new board game.
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
