Friday, August 11, 2006
Barring the rare scenario that has me falling in love with a European supermodel touting a 154 IQ and an enormous wealth of talent, I am not next.
That’s the question I was asked ceaselessly yesterday by wedding goers who couldn’t think of something more original to say. “So, are you next?”
Hmmm, well, since I lack the clairvoyant powers of Miss Cleo and the foresight of Gary Kasparov, I have no idea if I’m next. I guess it’s possible. With 3.5 billion women on the planet, the odds are actually in my favor. But after watching Sean and Sunni force smiles and fake laughter for nearly three hours while standing in line at their reception, greeting folks they’d either never met or just didn’t care much about, I’m not in any hurry. Right now, in a state of post-wedding exhaustion, I’d rather have an unnecessary root canal than endure another wedding.
Speaking of post-wedding exhaustion, I wonder how Sean’s doing this morning. Actually, if my powers of deduction are accurate, the famed wedding night wasn’t the first time that “it” happened for them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The wedding was slated for 10:30 yesterday morning in Logan, so of course, my dad, showing an unprecedented degree of panic, had everyone up well before 8.
Me (in a sleep-deprived stupor): “What time are we leaving?”
Dad: “8:30.”
Me: “Why so early?”
Dad: “Just in case we get a flat tire or something.”
Interesting strategy. Allowing an hour’s worth of catastrophe time just in case a statistical oddity like a flat tire happened to derail the wedding that particular morning, thus stifling a lifetime of prospective marital bliss. Made sense to me. I jumped in the shower.
We got to Logan at 9:30, a full hour before the big ceremony, and needed to kill some time. My mom, younger brother, and I decided we had enough time to run to Smith’s to get a new camera battery. While we were there, I noticed that gummy bears were on sale. This sparked a heated debate between my brother and I about which brand of gummy bear is best. He favored the Haribo bears in the golden package, claiming that they were “harder.” I championed the Black Forest brand with the cartoon bear on the package, claiming the flavors were better. My mom bought us both kinds so we could compare the two and put the debate to rest. (After much deliberation, I have to agree that Haribo bears are superior, making my opinion wrong for the first time in the history of the universe. A real man can admit when he’s wrong, but paradoxically, being a man means never being wrong. Think about that.)
We drove back to the temple and went inside. There were more people in attendance than we were expecting, so, being the classy gentleman that I am, I gave my seat to a woman I didn’t know and stood for the entire ceremony. The sound of sniffling and teary sobs grew louder as the ceremony progressed, and when the thing was over, there was hardly a dry eye in the room. There are several things that never fail to make me cry (like the movie Rudy, for instance) but weddings aren’t one of them. As we were filing out of the sealing room, hugging the newly married couple, Sunni said, “Don’t cry, Ryan,” which seemed like a strangely cryptic comment. Mysteriously, her eyes were as dry as mine.
I won’t go into detail about the wedding luncheon. Let’s just say that I’ll never eat at a certain Logan restaurant ever again. The waitress also did me a huge favor and spilled Diet Coke all over my suit pants, which only made me look even more dashing. Heaven help the single women who were there.
The reception started at 6:30 and I was supposed to be there at 6, but my midafternoon nap went a little long and I didn’t even leave home until 6:05. The “garden” reception was at Sunni’s Dad’s house in Liberty, a good twenty-five minute drive from Ogden. I got there right as it started, but the bride and groom were surprisingly absent and my mom was in a serious state of freak-out.
A friend of mine who was in attendance told me that on his way to the reception, he saw someone who looked like Sean in the passenger seat of Blue Toyota Corrolla (Sunni’s car) looking beyond scared as the driver took the curves of Ogden Canyon at about 80 miles per hour. But then he thought, no way, that can’t be Sean, because he’d be at his own reception right now. Hmmm, I wonder why they were late? A man has to have priorities, and although I usually value punctuality, I think Sean made the right decision.
A few final notes before I shut the door on this chapter of my life forever. I’m proud to say that I went the entire day without saying a word to Sunni’s three brothers or her dad. Her mom managed to track me down and shake my hand, but I think, on the whole, my evasive actions were wildly successful. I was seriously disappointed in the number of attractive single women who showed up, but every once in a while, I was treated to a delicious piece of eye candy, although it didn’t get me anything but frustrated. We had ten frozen cheesecakes left over and several huge cans of that canned blueberry/cherry crap that goes on top. The little purple corsage I wore looked incredible in the moonlight, fifty pounds of “pebbled” ice were used, the CD’s I burned worked out fabulously, and Sunni’s dad, who’s a mailman, has a very nice home/yard, complete with a greenhouse, waterfall, pond, gazebo, and a beautiful Baldwin piano that I coveted as soon as I saw it. And no animals were harmed in the making of this wedding, except, of course, for the bride.
That’s the question I was asked ceaselessly yesterday by wedding goers who couldn’t think of something more original to say. “So, are you next?”
Hmmm, well, since I lack the clairvoyant powers of Miss Cleo and the foresight of Gary Kasparov, I have no idea if I’m next. I guess it’s possible. With 3.5 billion women on the planet, the odds are actually in my favor. But after watching Sean and Sunni force smiles and fake laughter for nearly three hours while standing in line at their reception, greeting folks they’d either never met or just didn’t care much about, I’m not in any hurry. Right now, in a state of post-wedding exhaustion, I’d rather have an unnecessary root canal than endure another wedding.
Speaking of post-wedding exhaustion, I wonder how Sean’s doing this morning. Actually, if my powers of deduction are accurate, the famed wedding night wasn’t the first time that “it” happened for them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The wedding was slated for 10:30 yesterday morning in Logan, so of course, my dad, showing an unprecedented degree of panic, had everyone up well before 8.
Me (in a sleep-deprived stupor): “What time are we leaving?”
Dad: “8:30.”
Me: “Why so early?”
Dad: “Just in case we get a flat tire or something.”
Interesting strategy. Allowing an hour’s worth of catastrophe time just in case a statistical oddity like a flat tire happened to derail the wedding that particular morning, thus stifling a lifetime of prospective marital bliss. Made sense to me. I jumped in the shower.
We got to Logan at 9:30, a full hour before the big ceremony, and needed to kill some time. My mom, younger brother, and I decided we had enough time to run to Smith’s to get a new camera battery. While we were there, I noticed that gummy bears were on sale. This sparked a heated debate between my brother and I about which brand of gummy bear is best. He favored the Haribo bears in the golden package, claiming that they were “harder.” I championed the Black Forest brand with the cartoon bear on the package, claiming the flavors were better. My mom bought us both kinds so we could compare the two and put the debate to rest. (After much deliberation, I have to agree that Haribo bears are superior, making my opinion wrong for the first time in the history of the universe. A real man can admit when he’s wrong, but paradoxically, being a man means never being wrong. Think about that.)
We drove back to the temple and went inside. There were more people in attendance than we were expecting, so, being the classy gentleman that I am, I gave my seat to a woman I didn’t know and stood for the entire ceremony. The sound of sniffling and teary sobs grew louder as the ceremony progressed, and when the thing was over, there was hardly a dry eye in the room. There are several things that never fail to make me cry (like the movie Rudy, for instance) but weddings aren’t one of them. As we were filing out of the sealing room, hugging the newly married couple, Sunni said, “Don’t cry, Ryan,” which seemed like a strangely cryptic comment. Mysteriously, her eyes were as dry as mine.
I won’t go into detail about the wedding luncheon. Let’s just say that I’ll never eat at a certain Logan restaurant ever again. The waitress also did me a huge favor and spilled Diet Coke all over my suit pants, which only made me look even more dashing. Heaven help the single women who were there.
The reception started at 6:30 and I was supposed to be there at 6, but my midafternoon nap went a little long and I didn’t even leave home until 6:05. The “garden” reception was at Sunni’s Dad’s house in Liberty, a good twenty-five minute drive from Ogden. I got there right as it started, but the bride and groom were surprisingly absent and my mom was in a serious state of freak-out.
A friend of mine who was in attendance told me that on his way to the reception, he saw someone who looked like Sean in the passenger seat of Blue Toyota Corrolla (Sunni’s car) looking beyond scared as the driver took the curves of Ogden Canyon at about 80 miles per hour. But then he thought, no way, that can’t be Sean, because he’d be at his own reception right now. Hmmm, I wonder why they were late? A man has to have priorities, and although I usually value punctuality, I think Sean made the right decision.
A few final notes before I shut the door on this chapter of my life forever. I’m proud to say that I went the entire day without saying a word to Sunni’s three brothers or her dad. Her mom managed to track me down and shake my hand, but I think, on the whole, my evasive actions were wildly successful. I was seriously disappointed in the number of attractive single women who showed up, but every once in a while, I was treated to a delicious piece of eye candy, although it didn’t get me anything but frustrated. We had ten frozen cheesecakes left over and several huge cans of that canned blueberry/cherry crap that goes on top. The little purple corsage I wore looked incredible in the moonlight, fifty pounds of “pebbled” ice were used, the CD’s I burned worked out fabulously, and Sunni’s dad, who’s a mailman, has a very nice home/yard, complete with a greenhouse, waterfall, pond, gazebo, and a beautiful Baldwin piano that I coveted as soon as I saw it. And no animals were harmed in the making of this wedding, except, of course, for the bride.
# posted by RBW @ 2:01 PM 
