Last week we used Thanksgiving as an excuse to spend some time with some lovely friends and chosen family and eat lots of really wonderful food. (These are the parts of the Thanksgiving holiday I can get behind. The celebration of colonization, the racism, the willful ignorance of the genocide perpetrated by our European ancestors, not so much. But the food and loved ones…I’ll take any excuse for that.)

And the food was really wonderful. Bacon-wrapped turkey stuffed with herbs, rosemary and goat cheese mashed potatoes, and twice-baked bourbon maple sweet potatoes with marshmallows were just some of the highlights. It was wonderful, and there was a lot of it.

So, as is fairly standard on Thanksgiving, we stuffed our faces. One by one the friends around the table admitted defeat, gave up, and retired to the more comfortable chairs in the other room. Everyone was stuffed.

Everyone, that is, except me.

I wasn’t hungry anymore after my first heaping plate, it’s true. But I could definitely have kept going.

And as much as I was amused, I could really only think one thing:

Hello, second puberty. You’re going to be expensive, aren’t you?

When I started testosterone injections four weeks ago, my physician pointed out that going on testosterone would basically be inducing menopause. I didn’t think much of this statement until a few days ago, when it happened: I started getting hot flashes.

This is not something that’s supposed to happen when you’re 25. Dear Universe, I am sorry for all those times I made fun of my mother when she was menopausal.

Today after work, I needed to stop at the grocery store to pick up some things for the dinner I was planning to fix for myself, my partner, and our friend who was coming over. As I got off the bus, I felt a hot flash coming on; by the time I got into the produce section of our tiny neighborhood grocery store, I was afraid I was going to pass out. I did my best to focus, grabbed the produce I needed, and then turned my attention to dessert. I saw a jar of hot fudge on a shelf, picked it up, and put it in my basket, thinking that ice cream with hot fudge sounded lovely. I then turned and began making my way toward the ice cream aisle.

Halfway there, however, I found myself feeling confused. Why was I going to get ice cream? This store had gluten free cookies! I found some cookie options for myself and my dinner companions, and made my way toward the register, still hot and dizzy, feeling like I had accomplished a huge feat in holding it together long enough to get my grocery shopping done.

As I unloaded my basket, I suddenly found myself holding a jar of fudge, wondering how it got there. And then I remembered. I thought about telling the clerk that I didn’t want it, but I was too discombobulated to manage conversation, so down the conveyor belt and into the bag and home with me it went.

And that is how I ended up with accidental fudge.

When I got home and told this story to my partner, ze thought it was so hilarious that it merited not only a singular blog post, but the beginning of an entire blog about my transition-related adventures.

So here it is, folks. Accidental Fudge.