In these early stages of my divorce, I find myself thinking back to our wedding. I remember running through Target and Wal-Mart with the little pricing-gun-thingy to create my “registry”. What a tacky thing to do! Inviting people to our wedding and telling them what to bring as an offering gift. Ridiculous. Young people getting married have no idea what they really need to begin their married lives, and they waste their time begging for useless things that they will never really use, like punchbowls and decorative china.
I think there should be divorce registries. That’s right. I’ve been with the same man in the same house using the same dishes, towels and pans for almost eighteen years. I know what I’ll use and what I won’t; I understand so much more about running a home.
So here is my Divorce Registry for my new home when I finally find one.
A lifetime supply of those Ziploc or Gladware containers. I don’t want to have to fumble through drawers of expensive Tupperware dishes for which I am never going to find the right lid. If I can’t find the lid for the cheap stuff, I can throw it away. Move on with my life. And if those leftovers in the refrigerator are on the verge of becoming self-aware, I don’t have to risk my life by dumping them and washing the container. I can throw them away, disposable dish and all.
And I will never again have to argue with a child about a Tupperware dish he or she forgot to bring home. You left my dish behind? Oh well, open a new package. Environment be damned, I’m having an organized kitchen.
I want cheap, practical dishtowels. Screw the pretty matching ones that color-coordinate with the potholders and wallpaper border. We all know the border is a leftover from the previous tenants, the dishtowels are going to get stained, and I’m going to set at least one potholder on fire. Just give me stack of the cheap ones from the dollar store.
e. 
Corelle dishes. Enough with the fancy-ass china. At the rate my kids and I break ours, we might as well eat out of the pans while standing near the stovetop. What’s that you say? I need something special for holiday meals? Why? I spend half a day cooking the special holiday meals, and it is ridiculous to spend the other half washing the delicate china that can’t go in the dishwasher.
Give me some plain, sturdy Corelle because that stuff is almost totally unbreakable. I say “almost” because they do sometimes break, but even that is a fascinating science experiment. They don’t just break; they disintegrate. They vanish in a cloud of Magic Corelle Dust. So they also provide the occasional after-dinner entertainment.
I need bigass wine glasses. The Big Guy didn’t like wine, so we rarely drank. When we did it was usually beer. I am drinking wine now, and loving every drop of it, but these tiny, delicate pieces of crystal that we got as wedding gifts are ridiculous. A couple of sips on the way to my chair, and I’ve got to go back for a refill before I’ve even sat down. I want a wine glass I can dive into. I want the Big Gulp of wine glasses.
Throw pillows are a necessity. Lots and lots of fluffy, ruffled, utterly useless throw pillows. He insisted that pillows on a couch had to be big enough to nap on, so we always had bed pillows on the couch. It always looked like someone had spent the night on the couch.
On that subject, I want a fluffy, ruffled, girly bedroom. I’m talking decorative pillows, a floral comforter, lace curtains. The works. I am a girl, damn it. I want a girl’s bedroom. And if I ever get married again, he is just going to have to be secure enough in his masculinity to deal with my very feminine bedroom.
I want a universal remote for the living room TV. Dear God in Heaven, I am so sick and tired of having to locate and shuffle through the eighty-seven different remotes that we have at any given time. If I can’t find something to watch with one remote, then it’s time to turn the damn thing off and read a book.
And last but not least, I want Riley the cat.
Now, I love my three idiot furballs. Fiesta, Mini-Me and King are all sweet and loveable and very cuddly, but I really hate their litterbox. Riley, according to his owner, has trained himself to use the toilet.
How cool is that?! I have literally spent an entire afternoon trying to attach the video clip of Riley peeing in the toilet. I’m not sure which is more pathetic — the fact that I spent an afternnon trying to share footage of a cat peeing in a toilet, or the fact that I failed at the effort after so many hours.
I don’t really want to keep Riley. I just want him for a few weeks so my cats can realize how cool he is and learn from him. And he is cool. I wish I could have attached the clip so everyone could see the expression on his face while he takes care of business. It’s like he’s saying, “Don’t tell me you’re still using a litterbox! How gauche!”
I wonder if Wal-Mart has a Divorce Registry. Or if it’s terribly tacky to throw myself a Divorce Shower. All guests would have to bring one practical item from my Registry, as well as the phone number of a single man who likes chunky gals and good books.
Except Riley’s owner. She only needs to bring Riley.
A Goode One 