After hitting the five year mark in our current Utah neighborhood, something disturbing started happening: invitation after invitation to wedding receptions from random neighbors started showing up in our mailbox. Each time I approached the fridge there was a new, dippy-looking young couple on a piece of fancy card stock staring back at me (usually with an air of self-satisfied naiveté while engaged in some awkward display of public affection).
Beyond feeling irritated about how this development would diminish our bank account (and enrich the makers of $15 kitchen implements), I realized, in despair, that my wife would insist that we had to attend all of these tedious events.
As an anti-social, middle-aged curmudgeon, I had come to the conviction that the best way to spend a Friday night with my wife was eating take-out food while watching old episodes of The Office in our pajamas… But because of all those invitations, we instead started doing the following each Friday:
· dressing up right after work in uncomfortable clothes
· struggling to get through rush hour traffic to an inconvenient location
· standing in long receiving lines, making inane small talk with strangers
· eating soggy hors d’oeuvres that never quite amounted to a meal
· and then going home to a messy house full of cranky kids
In an attempt to reclaim our sacred Friday evenings, I’ve decided that we need to start behaving just strangely enough when we do attend these events that our names are eventually placed on an unofficial “no invite” list.
Here are 20 weird things a person might do to pull this off; feel free to try one or two yourself.
1. While wearing your oldest, threadbare clothes, walk directly up to the bride in the receiving line and dejectedly hand her an unwrapped, 15 year old, jam-encrusted toaster.
2. Using a napkin, felt pen, and a loud whisper, give the bride’s mom a detailed critique of her choice of color scheme and décor at the reception.
3. Pout, whine, and refuse to shake hands with anyone while wearing one of those restraining leashes they use on small, hard to control toddlers.
4. Give silent, lingering, three minute hugs to each person in the reception line.
5. Stand behind the couple and mock their movements and facial expressions as they recite their wedding vows.
6. Wander among the tables giving unsolicited shoulder massages.
7. Disrupt the father daughter dance with some impromptu, hip-hop inspired tap-dancing.
8. Shadow the groom’s out-of-town parents for the entire evening, periodically tickling them from behind as a friendly reminder to “keep smiling at the guests…”
9. Wear a shirt and tie made out of the same color and silky material as the bridesmaids’ dresses and then surreptitiously try to sneak into all of the family pictures.
10. Be the first person to run onto the dance floor, attempt to breakdance “the worm,” and then feign a severely pulled muscle in your gluts.
11. Repeatedly pretend to serve people food and then change your mind at last minute and quickly eat it yourself.
12. Proudly wear a custom made t-shirt with bride’s and groom’s wedding announcement photo enlarged to an alarming size on your stomach.
13. Grow a Brigham beard, wear a broad-brimmed hat, and ask random guests if they would kindly introduce you to the bride’s sisters.
14. Insist on showing the groom’s father how close you can get to his chin with your newly learned roundhouse kick.
15. Take the microphone and perform jazz vocal stylings of old 80s New Wave classics for “free” (because you’re “still just a beginner”).
16. Allow your wife to lead the way as you shuffle around in sweat pants wearing virtual reality goggles, softly giggling to yourself.
17. With shaky hands, keep walking dangerously close to the bride’s mother with an overfilled glass of lemonade while whispering to yourself “C’mon—you can do it this time—you can do it…”
18. Greet each new person with a fist bump that turns into a last second high five, and then shake your head in confusion as if they were the cause of the awkwardness.
19. Get on the PA system and ask everyone who has been divorced to please stand up; then encourage the rest of the attendees to give them an ironic round of slow-clapping applause.
20. As your wife lingers to thank the bride’s family, throw a loud tantrum that includes wrapping yourself tightly in a fetal position around her ankles.
Good luck—and happy reception-going. My wife and I have turned off our cellphones for the evening, so you’re on your own if they end up calling the police.
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