A new kind of shower

What I think of the all-American bridal shower

Every woman dreads the pink, scented envelope with love-themed stamp in her mailbox: the bridal shower invitation. Maybe it is your best friend who is getting married. In that case, you are probably the designated organizer and therefore completely stressed out. But in many cases, you will need to read the invitation a couple of times in order to remember who this “Judy Brooks” we all love is. All you know is that she is super excited about her engagement, and that she is registered at Crate and Barrel and Macy’s.

Usually, the shower is held somewhere far away from your hometown, preferably on a Sunday morning (Oh joy, mimosas with Judy’s grandma at ten AM after having woken up with a hangover at six to make it to Western Mass on time). If you actually show up, and you are single, you will most likely be convinced by the end of the shower that you need a man to make you happy. If you are a couple, you will wish you were spending Sunday morning in bed with your man. Of course you are perfectly welcome to decline, if you can get past the embarrassment of calling Judy’s mother and explaining to her: 1) who you are and 2) how sad you are for not being able to make it because you have had this really important weekend away planned, yes, actually for months now (they always get you with their early invites).

Still, an expensive gift from the ever-so-boring registry is not to be avoided. So you end up browsing through Crate and Barrel’s website, wondering what would be a reasonable amount to spend on your ex-boyfriend’s childhood friend’s fiance, and when you finally find a gift you can live with (not an impersonal picture frame, not an expensive kitchen-aid, but a perfectly beautiful and affordable beauty-case), it turns out that someone beat you to it and bought the gift already. The only “Items Still Needed” (how romantic!) are either embarrassingly cheap gifts (clearly only put on the list so the bride-to-be can feel less guilty about adding a thousand dollar bed-set), and the thousand dollar bed-set. So you end up buying a mis-match of silverware and three flowery breakfast plates for the shocking amount of fifty dollars, which does not include shipping and handling of course. As you click on the “deliver to the registrees” button, you hope that they will forget to invite you to the wedding.

Never having had a bridal shower for myself, I find it very difficult to imagine why the bride-to-be would enjoy such an embarrassing impersonal party of collecting gifts from random strangers. Wouldn’t she rather spend the day with her fiancee planning the honeymoon? Is she merely afraid that if she does not follow all the traditional steps that lead up to the wedding, she will jynx her relationship, or her friends will expect the wedding to be called off soon?

I vote for a national revision of the necessity of bridal showers and the rise of a much more needed tradition: the divorcee shower. A divorcee, unlike a bride-to-be, is unquestionably always in desperate need of a day with friends, alcohol, and many, many gifts. After all, she has just broken up with the once-was-man-of-her-dreams. In fact, her entire household inventory has just been split in half. What are we thinking by giving a couple that just declared their unconditional love to one another (and therefore combined their households into one, creating an overflowing kitchen with two lean-mean-grilling machines, two toaster ovens and thirty pots and pans) any gifts at all?

The divorcee, however, is lucky if she even kept her own toaster-oven all those years. She is most likely stuck with a flowery breakfast plate from her bridal shower, which is the last thing she wants to stare at every morning when she decides to call in sick again and eat a fattening breakfast in bed. The divorcee needs to start fresh, create her own style, make a wish list and then wait for the shower to arrive. It will really pay off to attend this event because you will feel great by the end of it, either about having a relationship in general, or about being happy alone, unlike this wreck that just passed out in the bathroom.

Since I am creating this new tradition, which I am sure will be a big hit instantly, I feel obligated to give some guidelines to the brave souls who will start the trend. First of all, it is important to designate a good friend of the divorcee to organize the event. She will help the divorcee to register, and decline any pleads from her to leave her the hell alone. The divorcee is in no state to decide what is best for her right now, so be a good friend and ignore any begging on her end. Second, make sure you only invite actual friends, because this party will most likely turn into a solo-crying-feast and the divorcee in question might feel shy to do so if your neighbor’s knitting teacher is sitting next to her on the pull-out sofa she now calls her bed. Finally, it is important to avoid any back-ground music; because every song ever written probably has some association with the “Ex” we are all trying to forget.

Instead, start by asking how she’s doing and let her talk. She will easily fill three hours just listening to her own voice. Last but not least, snacks should be plenty but healthy, since the new, improved, lucky-to-be-single Judy (this is what you will call her all day long, preferably followed by three cheers and a hurray) is going to start her new life by living healthy and loosing the fifty pounds she gained during her unhappy marriage.

I would like to argue that the divorcee shower would even be appropriate if there never was a wedding, pretty much after any break-up of any kind (maybe they should have at least been living together; otherwise, the clever “one household split in half” argument does not apply). So what are you waiting for? Everyone knows someone who just broke up! Or maybe you just did so yourself. In that case, slip this article under your best friend’s door and remember to tell her to leave you the hell alone. If she paid attention, she will ignore you.

Gift suggestions:
Books: “It’s called a break-up because it’s broken”
“Why your life sucks”
Membership to the gym
Movies: “Under the Tuscan Sun”
“Brigitte Jones’ Diary”
Mani and pedi
GPS (he always gave her directions)
Gift card to H&R Block (he always did her taxes)