If you are a bachelor or bachelorette, who wonders what life is like on the “other side”, let me clue you in.

If you are a single man, you don’t have to share your bathroom with a dripping display of bras and non-machine washable sweaters. You can keep the toilet seat up as often as you please. You can have junk food anytime and anywhere in the house including on the new carpet. You won’t have to worry about whether you’ve just wiped your hands on the “good” towel, and bathroom reading material doesn’t have to be G-rated.

If you were a married man with children, you can say goodbye to your hot sports car and hello to a late model mini-van. You will find your ties in the toy box where they were thrown after a child tried to use them to make a slingshot. Right next to the ties in the toy box, you’ll find the remote for the TV, the slinky red negligee you bought for your wife on Valentine’s Day ten years ago that your daughter now uses to dress up like a princess, the eleven flashlights you had to buy for the last eleven power outages because you couldn’t find one (none of them, of course, have batteries), and the lima beans you insisted that your 9-year old eat three weeks ago.

If you are a bachelor, you can pretty much find anything you need right where you left it last. But when you are a dad… things walk.

If you are a single woman, you won’t have to share your bathroom with an animal that sheds hair. There wouldn’t be razor-stubble coating the sink, loose hair from a balding pate decorating the shower and pubic hair on the toilet seat. You can dress yourself in peace without being attacked by an overzealous male before you have brushed your teeth. You can make things for dinner that are good for you without having to make the potatoes and rolls that every adult man craves for.

If you were a married woman, you can say goodbye to flowers on your birthday, and hello to a clothes budget. If you had children, you will grow bags under your eyes, stretch marks on your stomach, extra long arms, and horns on your head. The days of filet mignon and lobster tails will be replaced by macaroni and cheese and corn dogs. Your best I’m-going-on-a-date lipstick will be used to draw a rainbow on the sliding glass door (along with orange peels, squished green peas, blue permanent marker, and purple glitter paint) and you will never find a working pair of scissors again for the rest of your days.

If you are a bachelorette and you complain about something, the man you are with will bend over backwards to help you out. If you’re married with kids and complain to your husband that one of the kids just ran through a screen door, he’ll just shrug and say, “Well, he’ll never do that again, now, will he?”

If, however, you are a married couple, you will never be lonely, never have to sleep in a cold bed, never have to battle the flu by yourself, and you can count on a kiss at midnight on New Years Eve (if you’re awake). There will be smiles to greet you, arms to hold you and someone to share two-for-one specials with. The rocking chair does not seem like a bad way to spend your retirement years anymore.

If the two of you had children, you will become invincible; heroes, in their eyes, at least. Your kiss will make boo-boos disappear. Your hug will make a bad day better. The very sight of you after the first day of kindergarten will bring abundant joy to a 5-year old. Your child will know that if he brings his problem to you, you can and will fix it. You are Superman and Wonder Woman.

If you have children, you will fly kites again, skip ropes, drink cherry Kool-aid, lie on the grass and contemplate the clouds, and take a Saturday afternoon nap wrapped around a trusting little soul.

You will have pride in knowing that you have influenced the life of a teenager. You will teach him to drive, how to work, how to treat a woman, and how to live his life. He will show you how to fly again and you will live forever.

There will be more love in your life than you ever thought possible. In fact, there will be more life in your life. So, what do you think? Is it worth it?