Wednesday, November 13, 2013

two hours

Abbie is in my inbox again and surprise, she wants me to work her weekend, four whole days so she can attend a wedding that suddenly sprung up. Abbie gets invited to a lot of weddings "suddenly" and she always needs four days off.  What kind of weddings are you attending, Indian perhaps? Don't they have three days of feasting and ceremonies with henna tattooing and lamb sacrifices? I can barely get through two hours of an American wedding reception and I'm looking longingly at the door almost panting with my desire to depart.

My own family is filled with misfits and we get together three holidays a year, my one sociable brother might throw in an extra picnic, drat, otherwise we stay at home and do social media like all the other nice introverts. We maintain this Spartan schedule just so we can tell people at work that yes, we had somewhere to go on Thanksgiving, somebody cooked us a turkey and we brought orange jello. My husband's family rents gymnasiums for holidays as they have grown huge and out-of-control.  I would think with their numbers being so large and daunting this would be a signal to them to cut back, have smaller more intimate gatherings but no one listens to me. I'm not even sure they like me, eh.

My husband knows two hours is my limit.

 Fifteen minutes to scope out the place and find where to put the gift card and where the john is, look for a table on the outskirts near an exit, somewhere with inadequate lighting.  Thirty minutes playing with the mints and cashews, folding and refolding the napkin, people find us, we beg off  joining them at their tables, husband complies, he knows.
 Twenty minutes standing in the buffet line, my back towards the tables of guests, taking a particular interest in the green bean casserole and how the salad dressings are lined up, look at those butter squares, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the fat chick to stop spooning gravy on everything, I need to sit down, I'm on display.
Fifteen minutes eating, mouth full, don't need to speak.
Thank god, someone has a microphone, all heads swivel towards the front, there are toasts, a  DJ's attempts at jokes, garters and drunken groomsmen, fifty minutes pass, I'm sitting in the dark, occasionally applauding, I can do this.

I'm sweating, time to go. But he needs to say good-by to people, why? If you're not there, they'll know you're gone. I'll be out in the car and the night air hits me like an old friend.

1 comment:

Arizaphale said...

Sounds painful. How come you get to choose your table? I thought part of the inevitable torment of weddings was seeing which table you'd been placed on. Which great aunt you have to tell about how you know the bride. Not to mention the horror of being the bride who has to decide who is going to sit with who......