30th Birthday Registry

Since college, I have joked that if I wasn't married by the time I was 30, I was going to register for my 30th birthday.

That used to be funny. Now, since I'm knocking on the door of 30 and couldn't be more single, it's just practical.

Recently, as I was pouring water out of a pot of pasta, the handle on the pot came loose, nearly causing me to spill boiling water all over myself. I thought, "I've had these pots since college, and they've served me well. But they are college pots, not grownup pots. Wouldn't it be nice to have grownup pots? Red ones?" But then, the obvious next thought was: "But these will have to do - nice new pots are expensive."

And another time, as I was chopping - no, sawing - chicken breasts with a knife I could ride from here to China on, I thought to myself: "These knives were hand-me-downs, and they were once very useful. But wouldn't it be nice to have knives that didn't strain my rotater cuff every time I feel like dicing?"

Why should engaged couples be the only ones to get the pleasure of registering for necessary, practical, household items? I mean, I think it makes much more sense for single people to register. We only have one income obviously, and we have to miss out on a lot of other perks married people get. So can't we singles have just this one thing? Throw us a bone! I'll take a Kitchen Aid mixer as a consolation prize for a lifetime without first dates (as if I had first dates to complain about...)

In your twenties, it is acceptable to live like a college kid. You're still young and unsettled... no one expects much out of you when entertaining - a bag of microwave popcorn and a sixer works just fine in most cases. But people in their thirties....they know how to party. You have to take it up a couple of notches. The expectations are different in the next generation. I'm talking relish trays, martini glasses, and holiday platters. I'm talking melon ballers and espresso cups. I don't have that stuff! I've never balled a melon in my life! But I would, if I could register for the little baller thing. I put little toothpicks in my melon after I've dug the seeds out with my fingers so my kid won't choke on them. It's just not the same thing.

So I still have a few months left to ponder the social stigma I would likely endure if I actually registered for my 30th birthday. Maybe, in the upcoming months, it will suddenly become trendy and socially viable for 30-somethings to descend on Williams Sonoma with their gadget-starved fingers poised on the trigger of the scanner gun. Let's hope so. I'd really hate to be the first.