had just stopped walking around with the palm of her hand attached to her forehead, saying to no one in particular, “If you stop speaking to so-and-so and his wife, it will save your father and me thirty-five dollars and seventy-eight cents a head, which is what it’s costing us to feed your rotten friends, who probably won’t give you anything more for a wedding gift than movie tickets.”
We set the date for our wedding for the following March, giving us more than a year to prepare for it. And, on a brave day a week after the “You’re Fat Although Your Puffy Private Parts Appear to Be Disease-Free” incident, I went to my parents’ house to break the news. I felt it was best if I went alone. Although I was twenty-nine, had graduated from college, and had a job, I felt like I was a promiscuous thirteen-year-old who had to tell her parents that her science teacher had knocked her up during a classroom experiment. With twins.
I don’t know why I felt this way; the only conclusion I could come to was that I was raised as a Roman Catholic, a religion in which guilt plays a larger role than God. The only comfort I had in telling Mr. and Mrs. Notaro that their daughter was getting married was that my mother would be relieved that I would be in the presence of some sort of religious official, and, against all odds, it wasn’t for a exorcism.
“I have something to tell you,” I said to them after I had taken a deep breath and sat them both down.
“Oh my God, you’re gay. She’s gay. I told you she was gay,” my mother immediately spit out. “You watched that goddamned
Ellen
show one too many goddamned times!”
“Nope, I’m not gay,” I proclaimed. “And that’s the good news! Isn’t that good news? And here’s more! I’m getting married next year.”
“Hello, insomnia, my old friend,” she said, her hand immediately flying up to her head. “Another wedding. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, where’s the Tylenol? If you were gay, you’d have to pay for this yourself, you know. If new neighbors move in next door to you, don’t talk to them. If someone new starts at your work, you’d better ignore them. I’m not paying thirty-five dollars and seventy-eight cents a head for people we don’t even know!”
The following weekend, the four of us, my boyfriend and I and my parents, attended five weddings we weren’t invited to, to scout for possible wedding sites. I’ve never seen so many fat, permed bridesmaids stuffed into peach taffeta in all my life. I watched in horror as one groom lifted his new bride’s dress over her head and took her garter off with his tongue and teeth; as another groom smashed the wedding cake into his bride’s face so hard she had to blow her nose to get the frosting and little bits of strawberry out; and as another newly married couple blatantly shoved their tongues down each other’s throat when anyone so much as knicked a glass with a spoon. The true horror came, however, at the last wedding when my father returned from the buffet and he was
chewing.
Weddings, I began to understand, were vile, filthy things when they ran amuck.
That was the day I started to comprehend the phenomenon known as Dreading the Wedding. You see, when a girl becomes engaged, a transformation takes place and she becomes a prenuptial monster, crying at insurance commercials, picking out Las Vegas showgirl costumes for her bridesmaids and any five-year-old girl who happens to wander into her field of vision. If her mother lives in the same city, she has the potential and the actual, physical need to injure people. She torments everyone around her self-absorption bubble, sucking any passersby into her lair of white tulle as soon as they innocently ask, “So, how are the wedding plans going?” The victims, if they survive, escape the lair without a large percentage of their souls, then immediately adopt fifteen cats from the pound, buy several polyester/nylon-blend cardigans, and never leave their
We set the date for our wedding for the following March, giving us more than a year to prepare for it. And, on a brave day a week after the “You’re Fat Although Your Puffy Private Parts Appear to Be Disease-Free” incident, I went to my parents’ house to break the news. I felt it was best if I went alone. Although I was twenty-nine, had graduated from college, and had a job, I felt like I was a promiscuous thirteen-year-old who had to tell her parents that her science teacher had knocked her up during a classroom experiment. With twins.
I don’t know why I felt this way; the only conclusion I could come to was that I was raised as a Roman Catholic, a religion in which guilt plays a larger role than God. The only comfort I had in telling Mr. and Mrs. Notaro that their daughter was getting married was that my mother would be relieved that I would be in the presence of some sort of religious official, and, against all odds, it wasn’t for a exorcism.
“I have something to tell you,” I said to them after I had taken a deep breath and sat them both down.
“Oh my God, you’re gay. She’s gay. I told you she was gay,” my mother immediately spit out. “You watched that goddamned
Ellen
show one too many goddamned times!”
“Nope, I’m not gay,” I proclaimed. “And that’s the good news! Isn’t that good news? And here’s more! I’m getting married next year.”
“Hello, insomnia, my old friend,” she said, her hand immediately flying up to her head. “Another wedding. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, where’s the Tylenol? If you were gay, you’d have to pay for this yourself, you know. If new neighbors move in next door to you, don’t talk to them. If someone new starts at your work, you’d better ignore them. I’m not paying thirty-five dollars and seventy-eight cents a head for people we don’t even know!”
The following weekend, the four of us, my boyfriend and I and my parents, attended five weddings we weren’t invited to, to scout for possible wedding sites. I’ve never seen so many fat, permed bridesmaids stuffed into peach taffeta in all my life. I watched in horror as one groom lifted his new bride’s dress over her head and took her garter off with his tongue and teeth; as another groom smashed the wedding cake into his bride’s face so hard she had to blow her nose to get the frosting and little bits of strawberry out; and as another newly married couple blatantly shoved their tongues down each other’s throat when anyone so much as knicked a glass with a spoon. The true horror came, however, at the last wedding when my father returned from the buffet and he was
chewing.
Weddings, I began to understand, were vile, filthy things when they ran amuck.
That was the day I started to comprehend the phenomenon known as Dreading the Wedding. You see, when a girl becomes engaged, a transformation takes place and she becomes a prenuptial monster, crying at insurance commercials, picking out Las Vegas showgirl costumes for her bridesmaids and any five-year-old girl who happens to wander into her field of vision. If her mother lives in the same city, she has the potential and the actual, physical need to injure people. She torments everyone around her self-absorption bubble, sucking any passersby into her lair of white tulle as soon as they innocently ask, “So, how are the wedding plans going?” The victims, if they survive, escape the lair without a large percentage of their souls, then immediately adopt fifteen cats from the pound, buy several polyester/nylon-blend cardigans, and never leave their
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