A Majority of Singular Sensations

I’m just one singular sensation. Apparently I am not alone. According to a new report more than half, 51% of all women, are living without a husband. Just like a fish needs a bicycle, if you’re old enough to remember that seventies t-shirt.

There are millions of us and we're coming out of the closet, ready to kick some soccer mom butt. We are SWBC - Single Women by Choice and our greatest family value is we don’t have to share the bathroom or the closet space or most importantly, the TV remote. We are your neighbors. Your kid's teacher. We are doctors. And lawyers. And plumbers. We’ve been the Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of State.

To celebrate our new found majority I’m launching a drive for our own march. The Million Matron March. I'm staging it on October 22nd the day my biological clock formally explodes. Old maidens toss your hormones aside and demonstrate for our rights!

Our rally will highlight the civil rights of unwed women who easily by-pass family-sized packages of toilet paper and gallon jugs of milk and mayo and demurely decline two-for-one dinners unless we’re really really hungry.

We will no longer be the silent majority. Say it loud, I’m alone and proud! We will happily carry placards proclaiming "I'm Pro-Marriage Penalty!" Our demands will be simple. We want a ban on the "based on double occupancy" clause. We want the single supplement to mean vendors supplement singles for using less space. And there will be no room for negotiations on our demand for an 85% tax deduction on all engagement, wedding and anniversary presents given to our minority friends.

We demand that Hallmark pressure Congress to designate a commercial holiday with bank closures. Let’s make it the last shopping day before Valentine’s Day, just to rub it in. There will be traditional gifts of single roses, an individually wrapped chocolate and gift certificates to clean smelling handymen. And we'll be expecting cards:

To my favorite spinster Aunt
I've often heard you rave and rant
What a nuisance spouses are
Of a marriage you’ve stayed so far
You chose the carefree no guy way
So enjoy your National Old Maids Day!

We're not going to stop there. Eventually, we'll start a nationwide fund-raising drive for a National Bachelorette Hall of Fame. Our first inductee? Elizabeth Tudor or Janet Reno. Don't let that ole Elian Gonzalez issue fool you that she's doesn't have a maternal instinct. And don’t think that just because Janet's our idol that we all walk around in sensible shoes with severe haircuts. Look at Condelezza Rice. She’s so put together in her color-coordinated power suits and black stiletto heeled boots. I guess with no focus on a family she can afford those pricey Ferregamos on a government salary.

And gosh, Oprah’s the most admired woman in America, although to us she’s the perfect bipartisan role model as Czarina of Singledom. Like millions of us rich and poor, Oprah doesn't have to worry about coordinating spousal schedules, being nice to a husband’s boss’s wife or the bed-hogging tendencies of the male of the species. Nah, gals like us, we're going to premieres, buying fancy frocks, eating in swanky restaurants, jetting off to Paris on a whim. At least, I would be doing that if I weren't for my nephew. Who is of course the reason I won’t be marching this year. I’ll be babysitting while my sister and her husband celebrate yet another wedding anniversary.

By Stephanie Becker