CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: WEDDINGS, BABIES MEAN YOU CAN REALLY CLEAN UP

I'm going to three showers next month.

My friend Jennifer is having her first child, to be named either Caitlin or Brendan. Rebecca is getting married for the first time. She's 43, and all she tells her friends is, "I either had to get married or be killed by a terrorist." I guess terrorists are still scarcer than available men. Thank God. Lisa is also getting married. It's her second marriage, but since a fire destroyed all their stuff, I can't grumble about etiquette.

Showers aren't the casual affairs they used to be. When I was in high school, bridal showers meant buying a laundry basket and filling it up with gadgets like wooden spoon sets, dish towels and vegetable peelers. Now suggested gifts are place settings and washer-dryer sets.

Bridal and baby showers used to be exclusively female. Men were never seen, except for a fleeting glimpse of somebody dropping off their wife or daughter for the party. Men didn't want to see how many words they could make from the letters of the baby's proposed name or fashion bouquets out of gift bows. They certainly didn't want to hear all those horror stories about childbirth.

Now men get invited to showers all the time, and it didn't take a Supreme Court ruling. Sometimes they're guests. Sometimes they're strippers.

It's a changing world.

I've been going to showers since I was 16 or so, at an average of four to six a year.

That's a lot of wrapping paper. I think they call them showers because the guest of honor is showered with gifts.

I realize you're not supposed to keep track of things like how many gifts you've given, and nobody gets married just to get all those presents.

Well, very few people, anyway.

However, I've decided that if I'm not married by the next chronological milestone (I said if; I'm a hopeful romantic), I'm throwing myself an "I Don't Have the Husband, But I Still Want the Presents" shower.

I may even register for gifts. China. Flatware. Appliances. Lots of toasters and towels, too. The expensive ones with the satin appliques. Maybe even one of those rice-steamer things. And I don't even like rice.

There are only so many major gift-hogging occasions in a person's life. Graduations, weddings, babies, and anniversaries of 25 years or more. Notice a theme there?

A co-worker and I were discussing the woman who threw a wedding party and married herself. A friend of mine underwent a similar ceremony.

The wedding itself was brief. The reception was a hoot. She caught her own bouquet and threw wedding cake at herself.

Her mother, who'd always wanted to see her little girl in a big wedding, was somewhat less than thrilled, but weddings are always kind of a let-down, sooner or later.

"I'd take a gift to something like that," my office-mate said.

That's when I pounced.

"How nice a gift?" I asked. We journalists are always in there swinging.

"Something like what you'd take to a real wedding," she replied.

That's mere millimeters from setting a precedent.

When my friend married herself, she read a "prayer of self-affirmation" (that's a direct quote, by the way).

One passage pointed out that just because a woman isn't married, that doesn't mean she's less valuable as a person.

I'm learning to appreciate that sentiment.

I suppose if self-worth came gift-wrapped, life would be a lot easier.

But I still need a new toaster.

~Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.