People keep saying that the only way I’ll ever be married is if a man comes out of nowhere and sweeps me off my feet. To them I say…that’s not going to happen. Or rather, if it does, I’m going to smack him right in his smug, presumptuous face and tell him to unhand me that instant, because I’m not the kind of girl who’ll take that nonsense.

Alright, so I’m picky. People at the Club have given me enough ribbing about it, as if so many of them aren’t fulfilling the single cat lady stereotype. I AM picky, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. But you know what I have that most of them don’t? A solid plan of action. I’ve known from age eleven exactly the type of man I want to marry, so really, I’m just going for a goal instead of idly waiting for any old guy to come along who I think will be ‘passable’.

He needs a good job, and I mean a good job. Not an office drone who makes half-a-million a year but never has anything interesting to say. Something really rough and tumble, like a high-up in the stainless steel marine fabrication industry. Yep, that’d be perfect. There’s probably good money in it, it’s a bit off-kilter and it’s real work. Maybe he’ll operate a crane or something. There must be a load of great stories from operating cranes to build ships, and that’s definitely something I’d be happy to tell people at parties. My husband? Oh, he’s in the marine fabrication industry. Something about plate alloy boats. Oh, your husband is an insurance worker? How boring, trilling laugh!

Yeah, that sounds good. So I just have to wait for some nice, polite, relatively good-looking, cat-loving guy to come along who makes boats for a living, and I’ll be set up for life. I really wouldn’t mind having my own boat, but not a boring wooden one that you have to row. Nope, I’m looking for a proper, aluminium plate boat to call my own. See, I’ve already researched the terminology. I’m totally ready for marriage now.

-Stella