Wedding Belles

Apparently, I have reached the age where it has become unacceptable to attend a wedding dateless. I made that mistake on Saturday when I attended a childhood friend's nuptials with my friend Kathy who is also single and received an invitation to the blessed event. We decided that it is too much work to find dates, and far to awkward to sit through a ceremony, reception and dance with someone that you don't really like in the case that you are actually able to find some poor sucker to agree to it. Unfortunately, I don't yet have a throng of men on hand to call upon in these situations. So Kathy and I went together, arriving seconds before the bride's entrance, because we underestimated the distance and overestimated our navigation skills. We were good girls, giggling only on occasion and our whispered critiques were mostly nice. I didn't gag once during the slide show, I waited patiently to congratulate the happy couple as they dismissed us by rows and I even stood with the bubble-blowing throng waiting for the couple to exit the church. However, I did not actually blow any bubbles. I have my limits.

On the drive to the reception, Kathy and I discussed the wedding down to the finest detail like any good single girls would. We wondered what time food would be served at the reception, seeing as it was only three-thirty by this time. We figured it would probably be at five, and considered stopping for a snack because we were so hungry. In the process of making that decision I spotted a Mercedes dealership and gushed to Kathy about how the only car I had any aspirations of owning was a Mercedes. We were about to pass the dealership when she asked me if I wanted to test-drive one. Was that even an option? Of course I did. So I shouted an affirmative and she whipped into the lot. We perused for a minute when Larry approached. He asked us what we were looking for and I pulled the old I'm-blond-with-big-boobs-and-I-don't-spend-a-lot-of-quality-time-using-my-brain routine. I told him that I didn't know much about cars. He assured me that his thirty years in the business would make up for my deficiency. He asked us where we were from and I let Kathy field that one. She gave him the name of a town near our hometowns and told him that we were just passing through for a wedding. We didn't even have to lie and he offered to let us take the car out. 

It was a good ride, and Larry provided decent conversation. One of his sales pitches was that Mercedes were theft-proof. He backed this up with a reference from Gone in 60 Seconds, in which the only car on the list that they are unable to steal is the Mercedes. He also told us we could do whatever we wanted with the car, but warned us that any tickets were our own. I asked him if anyone he took out had gotten a ticket and he said that one guy had. He had been going one-fifty in a fifty-five. He told us that the car we were driving would not go faster than one-forty. We told him that could be a problem. It wasn't until he asked us who would primarily be driving the car that we realized that he thought we were a lesbian couple. Discussing it later we realized it made perfect sense. We went to a wedding together, we claimed that we lived in the same town and our story didn't hold any water if we were two single twenty-something females EACH looking to buy a Mercedes. When we left he only gave us one business card. Why would we need two? We could just share it like we were going to share our Mercedes. 

We continued our jaunt to the reception much like Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs, following the trail of purple and silver metallic streamers that cut ties with the couples faux-vandalized car. We, too, lost the trail and got detoured on our journey desperately seeking food, but we eventually found the Holiday Inn. We waited with our fellow guests for the doors to the reception hall to open. We made the mistake of going to the bathroom, because we came out to find that they had opened in the meantime. By the time we got in and staked claim to an empty table for eight, there were hardly any unseated guests. None came to our table. We sat alone at a table for eight. It turned out to be okay, though, because we each ate two salads and, like, three rolls. When an old co-worker and neighbor pointed to Kathy and asked me "Is that your...friend?" with a weird look on her face, I resolved to bring a date to the next wedding. For Christ's sake, we were all from a town of eight-hundred where both Kathy and I worked with this woman. I didn't bring a man with me. Big deal. I shouldn't have to defend my sexuality.   

After eating, we decided to make a trip to the liquor store. Being the classy girls that we are, we knew we needed to get drunk and that it wasn't going to happen on four dollar drinks from the cash bar. I would say, without judgement, that Kathy is one of the most indecisive people I know, so our choice of booze was not an easy decision to make. We had to factor in potency, mixers and the size and material of the bottle because we had to be subtle back at the reception. At the checkout we found smallish plastic bottles of rum. We got yelled at by a cop because Kathy sized it up to see if it would fit in her purse. Right as I was telling her not to put it in her purse because the cop would think she was stealing he said loudly, "You are putting a bottle in your purse with a cop watching," in a tone that made it clear that he thought we were the dumbest bitches he had ever seen. After all, we were pretty conspicuous with the hundred-pound thief wearing a very short, BRIGHT YELLOW dress. Shit, we might act stupid, but we weren't THAT stupid. I defended Kathy by saying, "She's not stealing it, she's just seeing if it will fit in her purse!" We bought two bottles and walked out, heads held high. 

I didn't end up getting drunk, but my high-school principal did. That was pretty funny. I also got to catch up with a few family friends from my hometown that I haven't seen for awhile. It was a good day despite my sobriety, especially considering that I got to drive my dream car for the first time, and was the accessory to the alleged attempted-theft of Malibu by an upstanding pharmacy student. The wedding also made me think, which I generally appreciate. The bride graduated with me, and subsequently met a guy, converted her religion and is now MARRIED. It caused me to think about my choices. I wonder if I really can have it all. If I can, am I making the right choices now to achieve that? If I can't have it all, what will I sacrifice? But then I realize that I am happy right now, going to weddings with my girlfriends and taking off for Africa because I want to. I am happy with no degree, no career, no religion, no man and no kids. I love the unknown, and probably won't have any of the aforementioned things until I decide that having them outweighs the thrill of not having them. I am not ready to know who I am going to spend the rest of my life with, or praying to or working for. Right now I am content with the limitless possibilities that lay before me.