Underpants On The Outside

One of my favorite jokes begins, “what has two thumbs and likes blowjobs?”  Well, I’ve got a new variation on it – what has two thumbs and likes blowjobs, but has elected to receive those blowjobs from only one person for the rest of his life?  [points thumbs at self]  THIS GUYYYYYYYY!

That’s right, readers, I went and got myself hitched, which is largely why I’ve been so scarce when it comes to writing.  Wonder Woman has become Wonder Wife, though I still have to refer to her as Wonder Woman, because she’s not changing her last name.  (More on this another time – I want to talk about my wedding.  For the time being, let me just say: up yours, Gloria Steinem.)

Looking back after these several years of marriage (wait – what do you mean, “three weeks?” …Oh, crap.)  I’ve come to the conclusion that getting married was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  Getting engaged was one of the dumbest.

Planning a wedding is like spending eight straight months immersed in the joy and wonderment of doing your taxes. Consider:

1)      You spend the entire time vaguely certain you are getting screwed out of your money.  There are professionals who could help you pay less, but of course they’ll charge you twice as much for the service.

2)      You are required to look up hundreds of pieces of obscure data that you’ll never need again.  Think of someone from your past – maybe a friend of your parents. Not a good friend, but a face you can recall from the occasional dinner party.  Got it?  Good.  Now find out if they’re allergic to cats, because that will affect the seating chart.

3)      Realizing you have enough of a rationale to strike one of your friends from the invite list brings the same shortsighted thrill that comes from realizing that while you lost your life savings in the stock market… hey, it’s deductible!

4)      When you receive a $300 refund check, all of a sudden the $25,000 you paid to the government seems like a pretty sweet deal, right?  Well, the same thing happens with a wedding; just replace “$25,000″ with “a whole lot more” and “$300 refund check” with “$100 Pottery Barn gift certificate.”

So yeah, it was a bit of an ordeal, but like I keep telling Wonder Woman, I think I’ve learned a lot of good lessons for the next one.  (She has yet to find this funny.  Give it time and repetition and I’m sure she’ll come around.)  Plus, when you pay taxes, what do you get?  Government – big whoop.  If Santa left you a big box of Government under your Christmas tree, next year you’d leave him Fig Newtons and soy milk.  But when you plan a wedding, your reward is the MOST ROCKINGEST PARTY OF ALL TIME.

Start to finish, it was one of the best parties I’ve ever been to, including several that involved pyrotechnics, naked women and hallucinogens, and I have my beautiful bride to thank for it.  She made two decisions in particular that I feel I must pass on for future generations.

First, for the week leading up to your wedding, stay in a hotel, even if you’re getting married in your own backyard. I’m sure your parents are good people, and they really, really want to help, but the situation is way over their heads.  It would be like a Labrador offering to fix your flat tire.

Second: get a photo booth.  You know, the old-fashioned ones with the strip of four photos, the first two of which are always of people in the middle of the sentences, “I’m not sure if I did it right; is it going?” and, “Damn it, I wasn’t ready.”  I now love photo booths. If there’s a way to have more fun in four square feet, I don’t know what it is, probably because all the girls I’ve ever dated are cowards.

The idea behind the photobooth was that the photos would make for an interesting guestbook.  In our case, the guestbook is the first half; the second half is more of a “me-book”, with cameo appearances by people who I care about and/or were standing nearby.  In fact, you can turn the pages quick and it looks like a flipbook titled, “Z and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Open Bar.”

But that’s the best thing about weddings: it doesn’t matter.  There’s a great scene in Goodfellas where Ray Liotta demonstrates the sheer awesomeness of being in the mob through a repeated mantra of, “fuck you, pay me.” Normally, I can’t relate – I’m a 5′3″ Semite, meaning the only way I’m getting in the mob is as their accountant.  But for one night I understood, because I could do whatever I wanted. In other words, “fuck you, it’s my wedding.”

When I felt like talking, I grabbed the microphone.  I puked on my friend’s $100 shirt*.  I touched tongues with another friend’s girlfriend while we were making silly faces in the photo booth, and when I danced, I danced like a man who has finally accepted that he’s never going to impress black people.  Fuck you, it’s my wedding.

*Whatever, it washed out.