Underpants On The Outside

In theory, when I refer to the Greatest Wedding of All Time I should be talking about my own.  It’s still possible, I guess, but it’s going to take a lot in order to top the wedding I went to last weekend.  It seems so obvious now, but I never realized before what the two elements of a perfect wedding are: a donkey and a water slide.

The wedding was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  It’s a great town, where the only downside is the $70 cab ride to get there, although that also keeps the tourism below the point where they would have to build a Senor Frog’s.  There are enough ex-pats and retirees so that if you get lost you know you’ll run into an English speaker sooner or later, but the town still feels like authentic Mexico. (Except for the Starbucks.  And the Dunkin Donuts.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t really “authentic”, but there were several hot dog carts where you could buy corn slathered in mayonnaise that had been sitting in the sun for days, which one girl in our party referred to as “sex in a cup.”  That’s authentic enough for me.)

The best part of town was a house on the outskirts that some friends of the bride had rented.  For $900 per week, they got a three story house with two sundecks, a pool and a waterslide.  There were four girls staying there (one hot) and whenever we went over there they were in swimsuits and (true story, I swear) the hot one was making bacon.  Plates and plates of bacon. I’ve seen heaven, and no one believes me.

What was interesting about the girls staying at the heaven house was that every night they’d get drunk and invite me and my group of friends over, but they next day it would be painfully obvious that we were not welcome anymore.  (It was similar to the beer goggle phenomenon, except applied to our personalities. I’ve decided that they listened to us through beer headphones.)   One time they even left the house right after we showed up, hoping we’d take the hint.  Their plan might have worked if they hadn’t told us how to turn the water slide on.  Oh yeah, AND LEFT A PLATE OF BACON. Surprise surprise - we were still there when they got back.

And then things got even better. Immediately following the wedding ceremony an eight piece mariachi band showed up, along with a donkey carrying a bottle of tequila.  Again: this really happened. The donkey’s name was Benito. At first I thought the donkey was total bullshit - everyone called him “Benito the Tequila Donkey” as if he had some sort of tequila-based talent.  A more appropriate title would have been “Benito the donkey with baskets on his back which could fit a variety of things such as a bottle of tequila.”

The band, the donkey and all of the wedding guests then paraded around the streets of San Miguel in our suits and tuxedos drinking tequila from small clay cups on strings that had been hung around our necks. And while Benito exhibited no additional talents other than the ability to be walked on a leash, he gave the procession an air of spectacle.  We were celebrities; there were parents with kids by the side of the road taking photos.  We weren’t just a bunch of drunken white people who hired a mariachi band and decided to go for a stroll - we were people with a donkey. Make room. 

I figure Wonder Woman and I can top it if I can somehow arrange an appearance by Roy the Beer Gorilla.  The only tricky part will be convincing WW to make room in the budget, but the way I see it, it’s not like anyone is going to be looking at the flowers when there’s a gorilla walking around with a keg strapped to his back.