BANISHMENT 18: The Marital Status of Unsignificant Others

It was bound to happen. Awkward situations like this always do. One day I was minding my own business, frolicking through the field of Life-is-Fair-and-Simple and then the next day I woke up and he was engaged. The boy I used to date and take pictures with at Mexican bull fights, but stopped dating because we thought our offspring might resemble the exorcist. The boy who was supposed to always be single until I was fully wifeyed up, likely with cantaloupe-sized offspring in tow, went and got himself a misses without asking.

I have officially lost. He has beat me in the game of Surname Shuffle.

I am at the age now where everyone is starting to do this popular thing called marriage. A particularly high commodity in the south with men who wear Dockers and women who want to practice hiring a maid to make the bed. And while most people think marriage is about love and family and finally getting rid of your horrible maiden name, it's really just a grand excuse to buy excessively large jewelry and have a worldwide competition about who can sucker who into liking them sooner. This competition is particularly important in the land of Unsignificant Others - people we dated once upon time, no longer like with an ounce of our being, but still feel compelled to beat to a pulp in all categories including Most Successful, Most Intelligent, Most Attractive, and, of course, Most Popular.

I would say, for the most part, I'm not like most girls. I have never purchased a bridal magazine. I find taffeta scary. I can't understand why spending $4,000 on one-day flowers will ever seem like an intelligent idea. And yet despite my lack of obsession with weddings, I do understand they are the pinnacle of winning and I hate to not win. Nothing can trump engagement.  It's the triple letter score in Scrabble when you have an X and can remember, for the first time in your life, how to spell xylophone.

For Lent, I give up caring about the marital status of unsignificant others. I give up saying, "You got a ring? Fantastic. Well, today I got a vacuum. Retractable cord. Bright red. Now I have suction power. I don't care that you have a diamond the size of an antelope's eyeball. I will dust buster your accomplishments into oblivion and dump you out of my bagless contraption and into the trash compacted landfill of people who say 'I do.'

Instead, I will say, "Peace be with you and blessings on your coming union... P.S. I would like a rematch."