The Kid has already married four people.

No, my child isn’t on a matrimonial race to beat Zsa Zsa Gabor and her nine marriages.  A few years ago, The Kid got ordained to perform weddings for some close friends.  Yesterday was wedding number two.

Because of social distancing, the wedding was held online.  Petey and I offered to help out with a trial run, to make sure the sound and lighting were okay.  Once the soundcheck was completed, we stayed on our video chat and well, chatted—about weddings.

Our poor child has heard enough about our own nuptials that it could probably be recited like the Gettysburg address, Mark Antony’s speech in Julius Ceasar, or the list of actors who portrayed the Doctor, in chronological order.  So we talked about weddings we’d attended.

Or more accurately, weddings in which Petey has served as best man.

It’s only been two,  but they both went so badly that it was enough to seal his reputation as the very worst of wedlock curses.  After the second marriage made the Titanic look like the Good Ship Lollypop, word got around.

Thirty-eight years have passed since he’s been asked to stand up for a groom.

The first time Petey was the “best man”, his friend, Shelby was the groom in question.  The night before the nuptials, a post-rehearsal dinner/drink-a-thon was held.  Petey had a shift as an orderly, so he couldn’t make it.  The bridegroom’s little brother, who was about fourteen or fifteen, was in attendance.

Petey’s absence was probably for the best.

The next day they were all there, standing at the altar, waiting for the blushing bride.  Shelby’s kid brother, one of the groomsmen, was standing next to Petey.  The teenager smelled so strongly of alcohol, Petey almost got a contact drunk.  Suddenly, the kid stiffened, and his eyes lost their focus. 

Shelby’s brother passed slam out.  He dropped onto the church’s carpet as suddenly and completely as if he were a tree that had been chopped down.

He was fine, just doing what most drunken teenagers tend to do—sleeping it off.

The second wedding that Petey served as best man, was for our friend, Wayne, or as everyone in Elizabeth City knew him, Pig. 

Pig was marrying a girl in my class.  It was a rebound relationship for Pig, and a bid for independence for Linda, his betrothed.  Chrissy Teigen and Pat Roberts would have been a more compatible match.  Heck, the Queen of England and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would have been better marriage prospects.

Petey was driving Pig to the wedding.  To this day he doesn’t know whether it was an accident, or a bid to rescue his friend, but instead of pulling into the church parking lot, he kept driving, toward the Outer Banks and freedom.  The guests in the lot were a sea of wide eyes and open mouths as the boys drove right past.

Unfortunately, the groom looked up and alerted Petey that they were off-course.  The wedding took place as planned.

Shelby’s marriage eventually ended when the bride realized that it was putting a real crimp in her very active dating life.

Pig and Linda realized just what a horrible idea their marriage was the first morning they woke up as man and wife.  They limped along for a year or so before they finally put their wedded bliss out of its misery.

I think it’s possible The Kid doesn’t carry the wedding curse gene.  Both marriages, the two-year-old one and the one my child performed yesterday are still rock solid.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.