Chapter 33

"Harold, I love you so very much, but I've got to get the wedding organized. There is so much to do and so little time." Harold was rubbing Emily's shoulders and gently kissing her neck. There was a large pile of catalogues, magazines and reams of yellow lined paper with copious notes in front of her on the table. "I have researched the printers, the florists, the site, the caterers, and I only have ten more things on my one year before the wedding, check off list."

"Sweetie, I love you to but I don't get it. What in the world is there to do? Why don't we just show up at the justice of the peace, get married, and then have a bucket of chicken and a keg of beer with our friends." Weddings have a very special deep emotional and symbolic significance. "I want to concentrate on our love, devotion, happiness, family and friends. Aren't those the important concepts in a marriage?" Harold kissed Emily on the neck and ran his lips down to her shoulder.

"Of course they are, but this is more important. I am organizing the wedding. We have to invest in our wedding and our lives. Think of the flowers." Emily turned the pages of Bridal Requirements Today magazine.

"Invest in flowers? How do you invest in something that is going to be wilted, dried, mulch in two days." Harold looked over her shoulder at the magazine and began to give her a back rub.

"Harold. Stop it! This is important. I've got to pick out engagement announcements and get them printed. Then I've got to get invitations for the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, the reception, and finally the thank you cards. This article indicates that anything less than a six color, embossed, gold plated, engraved, monogrammed set of each with matching envelope just wouldn't be right." Emily flipped another page in her magazine.

"Can't we just copy them at work and mail out? We could use colored paper in the xerox machine." Harold wasn't pathologically cheap. He just wasn't interested in spending a lot of time and money on stuff that had absolutely no intrinsic importance, and only led, if planned properly, to emotional turmoil and great expense. Harold understood that true love required a monetary sacrifice to the wedding industry, he just didn't want to spend enough on paper to send a child to college for a year. It was clear that failing to spend this money would reduce the investment in future marital life and immediate emotional bliss. But, there were hundreds of little wedding essentials that would add up to serious cash. None was enough at any one wedding to put a few bacteria on Venus, say. But if every smitten woman just said no to paper products and wedding drivel it would ruin an industry and the economy would collapse. OK, keep spending, it is good for America, the landfill industry, and it really represents a small investment in trees for paper.

"Harold this book clearly states what you are responsible for. I need a check for the flowers-it says so right here." Emily turned to Harold and put out her hand as if to accept the check. "It is quiet clear, the groom pays for flowers, liquor for the reception, and the honey moon. My parents pay for the catering. Your parents pay for the rehearsal dinner."

Harold understood the ease of assignment of OPM, Others People's Money. It complicated saying no because it made one look like a cheap skate; he wouldn't spend $250 on useless junk, he must be bad. If one person had to pay for all of it, the well would be shallower and the donkey would get less to drink. "Do I have a choice?"

"Harold. You have a choice. But only a single choice." Emily was getting a bit testy.

It was clear to Harold that he was going to end up spending more time on this simple little party than on the BioAtmospherics Project. "Anything you want dear." Harold had quickly learned the most important phrase in any husbands repitoire.

"Harold, there are some very important plans to be made. I've got to decide on the seating plan. I have to figure out if the bridesmaids should face the audience or the bride. I am making a list of all the out of town guests and who will pick them up at the airport. This list has all of the local hotels with rates and availability. The good book tells me exactly what to do." Emily did not believe in the rock spirit, or the earth spirit, or the sun god, but she clearly understood that whoever violates the tome of the wedding spirit shall be smitten down. She took it all quite seriously. Her mother a took it less seriously, but just seriously enough to take the side of the little woman to be.

Any breach in wedding etiquette would result in an emotional meltdown. There is something about the words "Will you marry me?" that soften the cranium of women. Despite the feelings of most grooms, this is not the sort of mental collapse that is either permanent or benefited by electroshock and antipsychotic medication.

Fortunately for Harold all of this insanity goes away on a specific date at a specific time. That doesn't mean the groom can't be sensitive to the condition. "Emily, does it really matter where each guest sits? The day after the wedding, no one can remember where they sat." Weddings are a community sponsored controlled insanity that ended at a specific time on a specific date-sort of like the date on milk. Except of course the milk goes bad after the date, and at a wedding it is bad before the date. It must be a controlled insanity because there is a given a period of recovery, in a place of the groom's choosing.

The groom is the guy who can ignore the most but ultimately bears the brunt of the wedding experience. He is therefore assigned the last expensive detail by the wedding tome, the honey moon. The honey moon is part of the ten step program for recovery from a wedding. You can't get on Oprah to admit your problem with wedding stress, unless of course you are a repeat offender like Liz. The wedding planners rarely discuss the ten step program. They don't want to admit to the disease in the first place. Once again denial is the first sign of a problem. They call it wedding jitters, rhymes with glitter, sounds like something a movie starlet would have, can't be all bad. Let me tell you. There is a ten step program and just as the Alcoholics of the world tell you how long it was since their last drink, married people tell you how long it has been since they were married. Just as people congratulate an alcoholic who has been sober a long time, we all are proud of, and happy for a couple who have been married a long time. They are still in recovery.

The other great thing about honeymoons is that there is an assigned job. It is a job that any 14 year old male would jump at. The popular culture understands it, the media reinforces it, the wedding consultants and books reaffirm it. The happy couple is supposed to have a lot of sex. No, let's get real. What fraction of people getting married in this day and age have not done it? There must be someone out there but they certainly wouldn't admit it. Does anybody buy a car without a test drive? If they haven't done it yet, they will have to spend the whole week learning how. Let's see is that tab A in slot B? Or was it...Um? I just don't get this. Honey where is that instruction manuel? Let's see here on page 69 it specifically says. Hmm, is this picture up side down? Anyway, sex is a good therapy for most things and stress in particular. But the concept that one goes to Hawaii, stays in the room having sex all the time, and goes home with white skin is old. If you spent a week in Hawaii doing this, first you should have picked a Motel 6 near a take out pizza store at home, and saved a lot of money. Secondly, you probably couldn't walk to the airport to get home. NASA uses those one week at bed rest experiments to demonstrate microgravity induced space adaptation syndrome. The newlyweds would pass out on the way to the airport. The whole concept of a week long orgy of love in a foreign place is flawed. Besides what really happens is much better.

The little woman usually runs down to the beach on the first day, trys to get an instant native tan, and ends up with skin that is so burnt it requires skin grafting. She won't let the man she invested in, so much as touch her. They then get that cold that every traveler gets and spend the rest of the week sniffling and sneezing. There is nothing quite as romantic as a continuous stream, river, torrent coming from a nose. Why does the nose do this? Why doesn't the nose just become painful, red, and then chill out? It is your nose, you would think it would be sympathetic to the fact that you feel sick. The worst part is the continuous stream flowing from the nose. Shoving the cold tablet up each nostril rarely dams the tide. But if topical tablets won't work, you are just up the creek without a paddle.

If the couple really get exotic, they decide to go to a foreign land, like say Mexico. All newlyweds have been warned about drinking water, they have been warned about eating fresh vegetables. Oh, your going to Mexico. Don't drink the water. Sounds great, a week in paradise without food or water. When they get there, they merrily eat cooked food and drink margaritas. They are thrilled that they are in such a beautiful exotic place for their recovery period. Then the toxigenic E.coli that cover the entire country of Mexico start multiplying in their bowel. What were once friendly little north American E.coli whose worst sin was making a little gas are over run by tough south of the border E.coli that can make an angry, vicious, not very pleasant toxin. This toxin has been the ruin of more tourists visits than any thief Carl Malden can scare you about. When this toxin takes over you would be thrilled to lose your American Express Traveler's Checks if only you could get rid of it. Where did it come from? Well, there was ice in the Margarita. Oops! There was lettuce in the enchilada grown in a field irrigated with raw sewage. Olé! Most of Mexico has this little gem sprinkled around just to keep foreigners in check. It's land mines in Indochina and Ecoli in Mexico. Well few tourists have actually died from this toxin, a lot thought they did or would have liked to, but few actually did. Let me tell you, if the sun burn doesn't cut the desire for carnal lust, toxigenic E.coli will do the trick. So the little newlyweds who saved by going to Mexico, lose by allowing themselves to eat food and drink liquids.

Don't think you can avoid these problems by getting married in the winter and going skiing in Colorado. Sex isn't so great with a cast on your leg. Do not despair, the wedding industry will keep going despite our better judgment, and the honeymoon travel business will continue despite sunburn, injury, and diarrhea.

"Sweetie, why don't you plan the honeymoon?"

Chapter 34

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