The Woman Who Married a Mannequin

As a single woman I suffered through years of family members and strangers alike telling me to settle down and pick out a husband. So I went to the store and bought one.

Spend months planning a picture perfect wedding, only to leave her groom, cold, on the steps of the altar, after a speech announcing to the congregation why she did it. Who would do such a thing?

That girl was me.

It was actually a renewal of vows. Chauncey and I had been together for fourteen years. Chauncey is a mannequin, and our marriage was a photographic farce. I started a satirical series of self portraits when I began to face what seemed to be universal pressure to hurry up and “make it happen” before I shriveled into a spinster. “Spinster?” Really? I thought we had moved beyond that decades ago. Come on, I was a successful career woman! But as I got older, the suggestions became stronger. It appeared that I’d be considered more successful if I found any available body and quickly settled. So I made a point of doing just that, in a peculiar, funny way that would point out what’s wrong with that picture.

Even though I play the main character, look twice and you’ll notice that it’…