{"id":645,"date":"2010-10-07T21:47:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T01:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=645"},"modified":"2010-10-08T06:48:25","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T10:48:25","slug":"saturday-operation-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=645","title":{"rendered":"Saturday: Operation Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Operation Wedding:\u00a0 1200 Miles in 5 Days
\n<\/span><\/strong>My cousin\u2019s getting married in Chicago.\u00a0 Game on.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, there are some things you should know before we get to the church.\u00a0 Things like, the side bets my family makes about the insurance premiums and structural integrity of the building when I walk into a house of worship.\u00a0 Things like the questions they still ask about those explosions.\u00a0 Things like the chances that it\u2019s still a church when I leave.\u00a0 The last time my folks talked me into coming to church with them was at a military chapel.\u00a0 Before the end of the mass, the Father introduced a 3-star general who announced that the building was going to be re-purposed for barracks, have a nice day.\u00a0 They\u2019ve never asked me back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So when I tell people I don\u2019t usually go to churches, it\u2019s not because I don\u2019t like it.\u00a0 It\u2019s just that I can\u2019t countenance putting all those other people at risk.\u00a0 It\u2019s a public service, really, just like the ego-reducing lining in my hats that helps keep my massive ego from accidental property damage.\u00a0 I\u2019m a considerate guy, you know?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking of hats, someone mentioned getting dressed up for the wedding.\u00a0 This depressed me a little, because I did not get dressed up for the wedding.\u00a0 Getting dressed up used to be fun \u2013 you break out your fancy clothes, put a tie on, grab your best hat \u2013 all the things that let you know you\u2019re doing something special.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get \u201cdressed up.\u201d\u00a0 I dress like this all the time.\u00a0 I wore what I usually wear to work.\u00a0 I feel cheated, really, because for me to get dressed up, I\u2019d need a frigging tuxedo, and of course there\u2019s no call to wear a tuxedo because I\u2019m<\/strong> not getting married.\u00a0 My job here is to make sure that none of my children make farting noises during the ceremony.\u00a0 (OK, my job is to make sure that none of my children make farting noises louder than Uncle Jerry during the ceremony.)\u00a0 SOBUMD\u2019s job, it turns out, is educating the kids on the new surroundings, since they obviously don\u2019t get to church much more often than I do.<\/p>\n

We step into the pew and take a seat.\u00a0 There are large hymnals in the book holders in front of us.\u00a0 \u201cWhat books are those?\u201d asks the Reigning Queen of Pink.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My sister picked up a hymnal and said, \u201cThese are bibles.\u201d \u00a0She clearly comes here as often as I do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat’s a Bible?\u201d \u00a0asks the Reigning Queen of Pink.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gobsmacked.\u00a0 I lost all powers of speech for a moment, right there, and my sister was so pole-axed that she couldn\u2019t respond either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SOBUMD jumped to our rescue:\u00a0 \u201cIt’s OK, they’re just like Korans.”<\/p>\n

Luckily the services hadn\u2019t started, because it took several more minutes to restore order in our section of the church.\u00a0 SOBUMD, who is so digital that she firmly believes God can be downloaded onto her iPhone (\u201cThere’s an App for that!\u201d), noted that there were several WiFi networks near enough to connect to from there; one of them was called \u201cDeath Star\u201d.\u00a0 I can only hope that it was a local neighbor geek and not a subtle indictment of papal authority, but these days you never know.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once we all settled into our places, the celebrants started filtering into the church.\u00a0 The bride was lovely in white, as brides are, except more so, on account of she\u2019s beautiful, and the groom wore \u2013 yeah right.\u00a0 No one looks at the groom.\u00a0 He looked fine, you know, for my cousin.\u00a0 At least he<\/strong> got to dress up.\u00a0 Toward the end of the ceremony there was a bit with candles; the mothers each lit a candle and used them together to light a single new candle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Number One Son leaned over and whispered, \u201cDaddy, what’s the point of the candles?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d said I, \u201cthe two flames are the two people getting married, and they\u2019re being married into a single new flame together, as a married unit \u2013 a single spiritual being in the eyes of god.\u00a0 Or, it may signify the bikini waxing the bride got yesterday for the wedding night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing, never mind.\u201d\u00a0 No wonder they don\u2019t know what bibles look like.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The wedding went off without a hitch, or rather with one, if you catch my drift, and if you\u2019re still reading after a pun that bad I should probably apologize, but I won\u2019t.\u00a0 The reception followed at a nice hotel, where friends and families gathered, caught up, ate up, and got down with their bad selves.\u00a0 There was plenty of great food, yummy things to drink, and music and dancing.\u00a0 I got to dance with all my cousins, which was great except for one of them, who left me alone on the dance floor 45 seconds into the song.\u00a0 Why he wouldn\u2019t want to dance to Right Said Fred\u2019s I\u2019m Too Sexy<\/span><\/a>\u00a0with the Big Ugly Man Doll, I\u2019m sure I don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 I mean, I left most of my clothes on!\u00a0 Just not comfortable enough with his masculinity, I guess\u2026\u00a0 Ah well, we love him anyway.\u00a0\u00a0 I have to say, not because no one else would, but because none of the rest of them (barring SOBUMD) are blogging:\u00a0 Our family rocks \u2013 and it\u2019s nice to have a new family member!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next up: The Return to Ohio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe two flames are the two people getting married, and they\u2019re being married into a single new flame together, as a married unit \u2013 a single spiritual being in the eyes of god. Or, it may signify the bikini waxing the bride got yesterday for the wedding night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}