Train in Vain

Yesterday I surfed across this post, about one woman's Back-Up Plan. A Back-Up Plan, in case you're unfamiliar with the concept, is when a man and woman agree to marry if both are single when a certain age is reached. I'm sure the concept has been around for a while, but it certainly was popularized by the movie My Best Friend's Wedding.

I've been the recipient of one or two offers of this nature, but I still find the whole notion kind of unsettling. To me, it's simultaneously flattering ('Sure I'll marry you...') and insulting ('...if I think I can't do any better.') I think my personality makes me unsuitable for an arrangement of this sort. I'm entirely too stubborn to settle for marrying someone I didn't feel was 'the One' for me - stubborn enough to prefer to remain a bachelor. And I'm too competitive, in a stealthy sort of way, to ever want to be anybody's second choice.

However that's not to say that I don't have a Back-Up Plan of my own. It consists of arranging for (potential) lodging in spare rooms and on couches of various folks, in case I reach old age and find myself still single. This is not the horrible leech-like arrangement it sounds like; I feel I would add value to any household, particularly one with children. I could be Jolly Old Uncle Dan:

Mom: "If you kids finish your chores right away, Uncle Dan will take you out for ice cream."
Children: "Yay! Hooray for Uncle Dan!"

Or I can play the heavy, as Eccentric Old Uncle Dan:

Mom: If you children don't do those chores, I'm going to send Uncle Dan to pick you up from school tomorrow."
Children:" Oh No! Please don't Mom! Uncle Dan mumbles a lot, and his stories go on forever and he scares our friends when he does that blinking thing."

I'm currently taking reservations.