There’s a joke that’s been making the email rounds for a while now. It’s about God, the Garden of Eden and that infamous first couple Adam and Eve. In this conjecture, Eve was created first and, oddly enough, she had three breasts. When God asked her how things were going, she reported being mostly pleased, but wondered why she had 3 breasts when all the animals were symmetrical. She didn’t want to complain, but that third breast kind of got in the way.

God agreed, reached down, removed the unnecessary mammary appendage and tossed it into the bushes. A few weeks later he called on Eve again, asking how things were.

“Fine,” she said. “But I was wondering; all the animals have a mate and I’m kind of lonely. Might I have one too?”

God agreed to grant her request and looking around said, “Now what did I do with that useless boob?”

There’s a fine question. What do we Mad Goddess women do with our useless boobs (translate husbands, partners, boyfriends or consorts – whatever suits you) when they turn out to be more of an annoyance than they seem worth?

You could start with a list of pros and cons – virtues and faults but you probably already know them by heart without ever writing them down. You could turn your troubles into a cash cow. A famous author of a woman’s detective series wrote her first book from her wishful plotting of her husband’s quick demise.

You could be grateful that we’re not as limited as our mothers and grandmothers. You know, there was a time when a woman could be committed to an insane asylum with nothing more than the signature of two relatives – her husband counting as one. Of course, that was a time when a stay in an asylum, with three meals a day and a clean bed, might have been a welcome vacation. You know what Cher says about marriage: “It’s a fine institution, if you like living in an institution.”

We could be like our daughters – a new generation of women who seem to be tipping the scales of career, money and power in their favor. The downside is that many of them end up with boys that never grow up instead of husbands.

I guess a Middle Aged Goddess, like myself, just has to learn to live with a useless boob that sometimes gets in the way, demands too much attention and (even though you think it can’t be possible) sinks to new, disappointing levels of every day.

I recently read an article siting research that proves men are happier in midlife than women. No, really? It went on to further explain that young women start out relatively happy, but end up just plain miserable mostly because of unfulfilled aspirations.

I could have saved this team of geniuses a lot of trouble in arriving at the same conclusion.

Midlife is about looking back at old dreams and wondering what happened, how did I get here and what am I going to do now? Pay attention to that last question – it separates the women from the boys.

A midlife crisis for most women means coming to the cold, hard realization that her youth is fading. If she is or has been married with children, it means that those children to whom she dedicated most of her energy, whether she worked outside of her home or not, have flown the coop along with her youth. If she still has kids at home, it means that she is overworked, under appreciated and just plain exhausted all the time.

If she is entering menopause, just being in her own body is a roller coaster ride of highs and lows – hot flashes one minute, freezing the next, skipped periods for three months (halleluiah) and the periods from hell that seem to last an eternity, not to mention mood swings that make Sybil tame by comparison.

Contrast this to the typical middle aged man. When he looks in the mirror, standing naked in the classic body-builder’s pose, he sees Adonis with a full head of hair, granite muscles and man-parts to envy. “I’ve still got it babe,” he says with utter confidence. And to prove it, he flirts with every young woman willing to puff up his ego and (if he’s single or otherwise available) flatten his wallet.

Midlife women look at young boys half their age and their only thought is too much work.

Men in midlife buy expensive sports cars and fast motorcycles that cost as much as a house. Women in midlife go on retreats where they are told that chocolate, sugar and wine are toxic to their aging bodies, are fed seaweed and tofu, and learn to embrace and honor their inner Crone.

Men retire and take up things like golf and rock climbing. They take flying lessons (if they’re adventurous) or restore classic cars and drive them to rallies (if they’re more the couch-potato variety).

Women retire and continue to clean the house, cook the meals and do the laundry. My mother lived to the honorable age of 87 – she washed the dishes for at least 75 of those years. She washed dishes the last night of her life. How sad is that?

Men become more distinguished with age, they fill out. In midlife women have sluggish metabolism, expanding waistlines and shrinking bones — we get older, shorter and fatter.

Between their magic mirrors and Viagra, middle age men believe they are a hybrid of Greek god and Latin lover.

If that’s not enough to make you laugh, then bake yourself a fudge cake and wash it down with a bottle of good wine ’cause, honey – you need the fix.