The Salty Spinster: Prologue

Thirty-three is kind of a ridiculous age. It’s not really old, but you can’t really pass for “kidlike” anymore. When I turned thirty, there was a surge of those familiar questions. What’s my life plan? What’s my baby plan? What’s my ‘label?’ Plans and labels became much more important than jobs and money.

Three years later, the surge has definitely diminished. But something ugly has taken its place. Nobody really asks questions anymore. Instead, I’m compared to various other family members like a piece of rubber shoved into a fragile crack.

There are many cracks in my family.

Cousin Jude has one of those generic four-year college degrees that apparently makes you an expert on everything. I didn’t know that was an option, or maybe I would have rethought that English major.

Cousin Jude, according to my entire family, is a saint. She has a part-time job at her dentist-husband’s office where she files her nails and watches Saved by the Bell reruns all day. She has two kids under ten who always look sick to me. Always.

Last Christmas, when I was drunk enough, I asked Jude why her girls looked so miserable all the time. She said the girls had been exhibiting an unacceptable amount of hyperactivity, so she and her equally saintly husband put them all on a strict no-sugar, no-gluten, vegetarian diet.

“Oh, so they’re starving to death?” I asked in my innocently drunken way.

Cousin Jude’s eyeballs bulged out of their sockets so far that I thought they’d reach out and smack my cheeks. My eyes have never done that. But I also eat meat regularly.

“My girls are perfect!” She shot back, half-snarling. “When they are grown, they won’t struggle with self-control, like some of us.” Her eyes glazed over to the empty wine bottle next to me. I shrugged, but she wasn’t done with me quite yet. “And they’ll be able to sustain a normal, happy relationship and not be so pathetically tragic.”

Tragic.

There was the new word.

  

I was tragic…in her eyes.

When I was in my twenties, I lived off both Bridget Jones movies. In the first one, there’s a particularly uncomfortable scene where Bridget is asked at a dinner party why so many women in their 30s are still single. Her response is horrifically painful: “I suppose it’s because our bodies are covered in scales…” –it’s a scene I couldn’t quite grasp until Cousin Jude’s remarks.

My response to her, though, was not quite Bridget-worthy.

Instead of saying a single word, I got up and left. I walked three miles home. I cried most of the way.

Despite how far we independent women think we’ve come, some remarks go too far. Some words hurt. And while my commentary about her daughters might have been a tad out of line, surely she knows she’s ridiculous? Right? RIGHT?!

I didn’t talk to Jude for several months after that. Not until we ran into each other at the supermarket.

She was behind me in line, and I was plenty happy to keep ignoring her, but one of her girls recognized me.

The cashier ringing up my groceries started talking to the girls. She told them how beautiful they were, how good they were, and how she wished she had had two sweet little girls instead of two little boys.

Cousin Jude was cooing with all the compliments. I was watching the cashier mostly not pay attention to how she was bagging my items. A carton of eggs was placed in one bag. A large bag of apples was placed on top.

“Excuse me,” I say quietly, “could you please put the apples in a different bag?”

The cashier looked at me as if I just pulled a gun on her. “What?”

I point to the bag. “My eggs are getting crushed.”

“Not crushed…maybe just dried up.” Jude chimes in.

The cashier laughs, grabs the bag of apples, places them into another bag, and probably figured I wasn’t bright enough to catch her rolling her eyes at me.

But in a heartbeat, her attention was back on Jude’s girls.

This time, though, I couldn’t quite be silent. This time, I couldn’t quite be as cute or charming as Bridget Jones either.

This time…the spinster came out.

“You are rude!” I belted out at the cashier. The lady stared at me, wide-eyed and surprised.

“Chill out. You’re acting like a psychopath.” Jude’s voice…I could barely process her words… Because why—why?—after listening to insufferable remarks—why was I labeled a psychopath by pointing out one person’s rude behavior?

Normally, I’d wait until I was at least in my car and then cry out all the anger. But something happened. The spinster was out. She was outraged. She was far too pissed for tears.

So she took an egg out of the carton. She held it in front of two little girls and their mother. And she declared: “Eggs are baby chickens who never had a chance at life! Eat it!”

The egg hit the ground. Bright yellow yolk splattered Jude’s shoe. The girls stepped behind their mother cautiously…because throwing a baby chicken egg was surely just a breath away from throwing a child.

Then I fled—I was out the door and running to my car. What I had done…it had to have been a felony. The cops would be after me soon.

After all, what kind of woman throws eggs on the floor in front of two starving children? I mean, seriously. I’m officially the spinster in Steel Magnolias—the Shirley MacLaine character who everyone’s afraid of.

That’s me. Ouiser.

Children cry when they see me. Cashiers call police. Eggs are in witness protection. No one is safe.

Except that for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had a voice again. Even if it was the voice of madness.

It occurs to me that we are not all destined to be those princesses in the castles. The regal, magnificent ones who always look perfect—and always seem to know the perfect answer to every situation.

It occurs to me that we are not all destined to be those damsels in distress either.

Or the ultra-mod feminists who manage to juggle motherhood with their career.

Or the self-sacrificing stay-at-home moms who point the middle finger up every day in favor of beating to their own drum.

No. Not all of us fit into a mold.

Some of us are born to be bad guys. WELCOME TO MY VIRGIN JOURNEY FROM NICE GIRL TO SUPER-VILLAIN...HERE I GO. 

(note to self: make up drug addiction to get out of future family obligations...)