The Pity Party

The other day I was at Kohl's, hunting for items to use up the $50 gift card I'd bought for a friend who snubbed her nose at it, thus granting me the permission to shop for myself.  Recently, I've been spending a lot more time at home in the kitchen and have realized that my past failures (leaving pans "soaking" in the sink for a week, burning the bottom of pots, scrapping Teflon off the bottom of pots with metal utensils, you know...) have led to a lack of necessary tools.

It occurred to me as I perused the housewares section and looked at prices that most people my age already have a healthy stock of items like a mandolin, a garlic press, a salad spinner, fork tongs, and other devices that I've never purchased for myself.  I've been cooking for years with 1 frying pan, 1 13"x9" pan, 1 sauce pot, 1 soup pot, 1 ladle, 1 slotted spoon, 1 spatula, 1 whisk--you get the idea.  It's bare essentials in my tiny apartment kitchen.  The few extra items I own are a cheese grater and some plastic-like mat you put on the bottom of a cookie sheet to keep cookies from burning, both of which were purchased from the dollar bins at Target.

Suddenly, a wave of jealousy ran over me as I stared at different sized CorningWare.  All those lucky bastards who got married got to register for these items.  All those homeowners got to have housewarming parties and beg for these items.

But not me.

I remembered an episode of Sex and the City in which Carrie finally became fed up with buying her girlfriends expensive gifts for engagements, weddings, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, baby showers and housewarming parties.  She finally decided it was her turn and registered for expensive shoes.

I like her thinking.  But I don't just want the stuff, and a little payback from all those friends who I adorned with gifts for the last decade--I want the party.

By the age of, say, 35, people who are spouseless, houseless, childless and everythingless should be entitled to throw a pity party.  Our friends and family get to acknowledge that they actually do feel kind of bad for us.  And we finally get to acknowledge that the single life with all this freedom isn't all it's cracked up to be.  We get to register for the items that we never bought for ourselves, but more importantly, we get to have a huge blow out to celebrate the lives we've led without all of those other celebrations.

We can celebrate the nights spent curled up on the couch alone.  All the bills we paid all by ourselves.  The number of friends we've managed to find to help us move from apartment to apartment.  The animals who become our companions.  The technology that keeps us entertained and thinly connected to the outside world.  The fact that we've made it this far without breaking down completely or running away and going off the grid.  We can rejoice in it all and the fact that we've come so far with so little change.

And I, myself, will be the life of my own pity party.  Because, really, I'm the only one who knows how much there really is to celebrate.

In 2017, I'll be registered at Target and another to-be-determined location.  It'll be the party of a lifetime.  You're all invited.