stereotypical single woman

Parents, when you are raising your daughters you will inevitably spend many nights reading her favorite bedtime stories to her, most of them involving some sort of beautiful heroine that survives unthinkable odds, and in the end a handsome prince will show up and everything ends happily ever after. You may then talk about these stories with your daughter, and you’ll emphasize that the beautiful heroine became happy by her own means, and the prince showing up was just the icing on the cake, and that happily ever after doesn’t exist in the real world. You’ll tell her again and again that the beautiful heroine was smart, kind, and independent, and would have been just as happy if the prince hadn’t showed up. And your daughter will believe you, grow up, go to college, get some degrees, move out on her own, and become the smart, funny, kind, and independent female that you always wanted her to be, and you’ll realize that you’ve done a good job raising her.

But then one week, decades after the bedtime stories, she’ll get out of work at 9:30 on a Thursday night, go to the store to do her weekly grocery shopping, and this is what will be in her cart:

She will instantly realize that she may joke about it constantly, but she now has officially become a walking stereotype, and it will stop her in her tracks. And to make matters worse she won’t be carded for the wine in the cart and the pimply 18 yr. old cashier will end the transaction by saying “Have a good night ma’am.” She’ll grudgingly accept that her days of being called Miss are over, she’ll feel unbearably lonely, and later that night as she’s sitting there alone with a cat on her lap, a very large glass of Pinot Noir, and her Lean Cuisine the only thought that will be going through her mind will be “godammit, is my prince ever going to show up?”