Der, Die or Das

I thought about that tonight, as I gazed into my fridge. When you think of bachelors, you think of a fridge that's empty, except for empty pizza boxes and a six pack of beer. You think of laundry strewn about and dirty dishes in the sink. You think of late nights watching premium cable channels in nothing but sweats. That's a bachelor.

So, what are you supposed to picture when you think, "bachelorette?" That word isn't even used, unless it's referring to someone who's hardly a bachelorette, or will only be so for a week or two. No one ever says, "yeah, my friend Molly, she's a bachelorette." Not that I like the term, but there's no good word in the English language to describe a single female adult. I mean, the word "spinster" hardly suffices as a feminine form of bachelor. Spinster has negative connotations, whereas bachelor is merely descriptive, if not being synonymous with freedom (although I'm starting to see it as synonymous with being gay now that I've moved back to god's country, where there are lots of bachelor elderly farmers yet no gay men for miles around, but that's neither here nor there). Yes, a single man is free, while a single woman is burdened with the fact that she is single.

OK, so that's a weird tangent that still brings me to my point. My point is, after looking in my fridge, I realized that I'm a female bachelor. My fridge is empty, except for empty diet coke boxes and a six-pack of low-fat yogurt. And I have laundry strewn about and dirty dishes in the sink. And I spend late nights watching cable in nothing but my sweats.

I'm not a spinster, because it's not a bad thing that I'm single. It's one less albatross for me to carry around. I'm a female bachelor. Not the gay kind; the single kind. I'd call myself a bachelorette, but I'm not getting married next week or wearing condoms as accessories. And, I wouldn't want the burden myself with such a scary label.