I can actually feel my brain cells dying melodramatic little deaths...

Source

I was reading a girl's magazine the other day, one where my birth year no longer features in the surveys, and I noticed something a little disturbing ... if you judged today's women by those magazines, apparently all we're interested in is "The Perfect Way to Pluck Your Eyebrows" or "Water Retention, The Undiscussed Curse".

It's official, we've finally figured out a way to bring the human race to a crashing halt. We tried large-scale disease and pestilence, pollution, and destruction of the ozone layer, but none of them seemed to stick. So, finally, we've come up with a new approach.

We're going to dumb ourselves to death.

Personally I think it's a conspiracy.  The powers that be are hoping that if they feed us this rubbish with no intellectual content our brain size will reduce, our IQ's will decrease, and eventually we won't be able to take care of ourselves.

It's just another form of natural selection. Survival of the fittest.

I suppose it could have it's advantages. Once all those intellectually deprived people have been "disposed of", we'll be left with a population of smart, worldly, well informed human beings who don't believe a person's ability to apply mascara while driving to work is an accurate way to measure their usefulness to society.

Oh, I can hear what you're thinking. "She was reading the magazine. Isn't she talking about herself?" But I was just reading it to see how stupid and useless it was. It's not like I was really buying it to see what the latest shades of eye shadow are.

Honestly, I wasn't!

So many Monopoly related deaths could have been avoided, if only we'd known...

So, it turns out my entire childhood is based on a lie.

All these years, and we've all been playing Monopoly wrong [link].  Can you believe it?  I never had a clue, but it turns out there's a rule that says if the person who lands on a spot doesn't want to buy it, the place should be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Hour upon hour, sitting around that god forsaken monopoly board, watching as my piece hopped right over Mayfair while every other player landed on it and refused to buy.  And now it turns out I could have had it if I wanted to!

I feel as if I've been betrayed, Hasbro.

How did none of us ever realise we were playing that god damned game wrong all these years?  Did no one bother to read the rules?  Okay, so it's not like I read them either, but surely someone at some point saw that rule and thought, "Hmm, maybe we should start playing this way.  If we do, we'll probably be finished in time for dinner instead of some time next Thursday".

What are we going to find out next?  That the left hand right foot part of Twister was meant to be a suggestion rather than law?  That correct spelling wasn't necessary in Scrabble?  That Hungry Hungry Hippo was meant to be about skill and dexterity rather than mashing that little lever as hard and as fast as we possibly could?

I just ... I feel like the carpet's been pulled out from under my feet.  A world where a game of Monopoly can be finished in an hour?

This is going to take some getting used to.

The inequity of single life...

There are a lot of unfair things to put up with being a single girl in a married person's world.  The social stigma that's attached to not having a ring on your finger, the frustration that comes from having to navigate every social situation with the knowledge that it was planned with couples in mind, the necessity of killing one's own spiders.

But I think there's one issue that stands out in my mind above all the others.  It's an injustice that's so blinding, I'm surprised other people haven't brought it up yet.  Surely there should be pretentious New York Best Seller novels and ridiculously maudlin songs written about it by now!  Surely hoity toity people should be having ten thousand dollar a plate fundraisers to raise awareness of such a grave injustice!

The issue ... as a single person, my access to the nine to five outside world is severely limited.

Yeah, I bet all you marrieds hadn't thought of that, had you!  You get to split the responsibiltiy of going to those places that are only open in business hours with your significant other!  You have another person to rely on if that couch you ordered is going to be delivered next Tuesday between twelve and four thirty.  But if I have to get the washing machine guy in or buy gluten free pasta from that ridiculously expensive deli that's only open between ten and three, then I'm on my own!

And this means that either I have to manage my working hour committments like a General planning a battle, or I have to rely on the good will of my boss to let me off when I randomly ask to go early so I can get my donkey reshod at the donkey reshoeing place that's only open when I'm supposed to be at work diligently slaving away over my spreadsheets.

Seriously, would it be that hard for places like banks and doctors offices to have opening ours that are just a little bit outside of the normal office times?  Geez guys, give us working stiffs a break!  

And the guilt involved!  It's like asking for an afternoon off (even if you've already worked the hours up) is akin to second degree murder.  Not that anyone ever tries to make me feel guilty, oh no, I'm quite capable of doing that for myself.  No need for the boss to shake his head disapprovingly because I have someone coming to shave the cat.  I'll have worked myself up into a fit of completely over-the-top guilt before I even bring it up with him!

Yeah, these are the things we single people have to put up with.  So the next time you're ranting on about how your husband/wife did such-and-such even though you specifically asked them not to do such-and-such, just remember that even though you have to put up with these inconveniences ... at least when you need to have the roof retiled, you have someone else to dump the responsibility onto.