It was a bit shocking for all of us to hear that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were
separating late last December. No-one can really explain what we all want to know—WHY GOD, WHY?—but my personal theory of what happened plays over and over in my head a little like this:
But as it turns out, Sarandon and Robbins are really just leading the charge by breaking up in December—apparently January is the most popular month for divorce and break-ups.
For UK department store Debenhams, January, then, was the perfect month to launch their
Divorce Registry service. This is like a Marriage Registry, but instead of getting stuff for the happy newlyweds, you are contributing household items to your newly-divorced friend or relative who may have lost a toaster, good bed linen or a microwave in the divorce/separation proceedings. (Unfortunately, Debenhams is not as yet offering anything on the Registry quite so useful as ‘The Best Years of My Life’ to give back to either half of a severed couple, but I hear they're working on it.)
I think this idea is brilliant. Depending on your level of emotional maturity, you would know that it can sometimes take months,
years even, to properly break-up with someone, and so to spend that long without a toaster can really cut out a lot of mid-week dinner options. As one of my favourite writers Starlee Kine
says in one of the most popular
This American Life episodes—a podcast I keep going back to whenever I have broken up with
anything—a boyfriend, dairy, Twitter—(of course, I never stay broken-up with the dairy or Twitter for long though)—you really shouldn't feel so bad after a break-up because DID YOU KNOW that
each and every person you have ever met has broken up with
each and every person they were ever with
until they got together with the person they are with now?!
DON'T YOU FIND THAT FACT REASSURING?! In Kine’s case, she soothed herself post-break-up by writing a sad song and playing it over the phone to Phil Collins. But maybe you're not the sort to wallow in the rhyming couplets of your own despair. Perhaps you'd like to gain something more tangible from all this pain—preferably something tangible made out of fine bone china—which is exactly where the Divorce Registry comes in.
Some people, of course, are
outraged, and say things like: This will
encourage people to divorce! And: It's just a cynical and immoral way to profit off people’s heartbreak! But as Debenhams spokesperson Ruth Attridge says: ‘I am sure some people won't be happy but we are neither pro- or anti-divorce. We do an anniversary and birthday gift list, so we thought “why not do one for divorce”’?
I agree. Why not. If only I had been smart enough to set up a Divorce/Break-Up Registry with a congenial department store for the entire decade of the 2000s, I would now have a fully-stocked kitchen instead of just one wooden soup ladle from Thailand and a kitschy oven mitt covered in a picture of Marilyn Monroe from
Bus Stop. And if Divorce Registries suddenly became so common that it was simply the accepted social custom for your friends to buy you some crap for your home after each and every break-up, some of us could really make a killing.
So Debenhams, you just keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, and we’ll all end up … well, if not
happy, then at least we'll be the proud owners of a slew of excellent French-style crockery to fill up our lonely, lonely kitchens.
