June 26, 2007 12:05 am
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By Mike Pound
Globe columnist
So I got in trouble at a wedding.
Not mine. Heck, I was in trouble long before my wedding. As weddings go, mine was pretty stress-free. My wife and I got married on a sailboat in Key West, Fla. I suggested Key West because I figured people would be so impressed that my wife and I got married that they would all want to buy us drinks.
That’s right. I got married on the promise of free alcohol.
Unfortunately, as I found out, a lot of people get married in Key West. So many people, in fact, that people in Key West expect you to buy them drinks for letting you getting married there.
No, the wedding at which I got in trouble was Saturday in Joplin. And I wasn’t the only person who got in trouble. My 9-year-old daughter, Emma, got in trouble too. What we were doing was playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Sure, I guess I’m to blame because I started the game, but I really didn’t have to twist Emma’s arm to get her to join in.
My wife, being a woman and all, figured that a wedding was the wrong place for people to be playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. See, women love weddings. They always gush about how beautiful the bride looks (and the bride Saturday truly was lovely). They gush about the wedding dress. They gush about the flowers. And they gush about the music.
Women gush a lot at weddings, is what I’m saying.
Men, by nature, aren’t gushers. And if they were going to gush, I’m guessing it wouldn’t be at a wedding. I’m thinking that if a man were going to gush, it would be at a tractor pull.
Earl: Wow, Merle, that John Deere sure knows how to make ’em.
Merle: Are you gushing, Earl?
Earl: I reckon I am.
Merle: I think I’m supposed to slug you now.
I don’t gush at weddings, but I will admit that my attitude toward them has changed — at least since I became a dad. When I was a kid, I thought weddings were sort of silly. When I got older, I thought they were sort of scary. After I got married, I thought they were sort of sad. Ha! That’s a veteran married guy joke.
But after Emma was born, I starting looking at weddings a little differently. See, I discovered that the parents of the bride are sort of obligated to pick up the tab for most of the wedding expenses.
I don’t think that’s fair.
I also discovered that there are a lot of wedding expenses. How many? Well, I could tell you, but I would have to charge you a wedding-expense-list fee. I don’t know exactly what the total cost for a wedding has gone to lately, but I’ve heard rumors. All I can say is that if you and your spouse are thinking about having a child, and if that child turns out to be a girl, and if you haven’t already started saving for her wedding, it’s too late.
I also have been told that there is a direct correlation between the cost of your daughter’s wedding and the number of female gushes it generates. I’m not a nosy person, so I didn’t ask anyone what they thought the wedding on Saturday cost. But I sure did hear a lot of gushing, so I’m guessing the cost was slightly more than the gross national product of Guam.
But I also saw the look on the bride’s face. And I saw the look on the bride’s parents’ faces. I figured the bride’s parents weren’t thinking much about what the wedding cost. I figured the parents were, instead, thinking about how happy their daughter looked. I figured they were thinking about how beautiful she was. I figured they were thinking about how quickly their little girl had gone from baby shoes to high heels. From dress-up clothes to a wedding gown. And from saying boys are “gross” to saying “I do.”
I think that’s why I started playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with Emma during the wedding. I guess I wanted to make sure that she’s still a little girl. I guess I wanted to make sure that I could hang onto her a little longer.
But I know that someday, my wife and I will be arguing over the cost of a wedding gown and flowers and music and a hundred other things. And I know that all that arguing will go out the window when we start thinking about how happy Emma will look — as happy, I hope, as the bride looked in the wedding Saturday.
If she does, I might even gush.
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