running the gamut
for reasons beyond my comprehension, my old friend aaron from high school got married this weekend. apparently people still get married in their early twenties these days, as if it was still 1950. at least it wasn’t arranged. the upside was, of course, those 2 magical words: open bar. and to set the scene, this is my very religious friend who just graduated school in the bad ol U S of A.
eight of us loyal high school friends made the journey down to grand rapids michigan. laughing (politely and quietly to ourselves of course) through the ceremony, the reception started immediately after. we were the first there, and the first at the bar. needless to say, we would also be the last.
by about 6, the wine and beer had been flowing for about an hour, and the boring dutch speeches were in full swing. feeling the need to add a little spice to this intimate gathering, we wrote a song. a song set to the tune of o canada, and with a delicate introduction: “hi we’re aaron’s friends from highschool, and we’d just like to say that we didn’t want to come to this war-mongering country, but we’re honoured to be here for our friend’s big day.” for a room of about two hundred conservative church people, about half of which are republicans from the bible belt, they took it surprisingly well. at least i think they were friendly boos. aaron’s dad told me later that paige’s (the bride) parents were ’staunch bush supporters’. the song ended with the line ‘o aaron our beloved canuck, we know you just want to… kiss’.
after that, the night sort of spiraled into randomness, as it tends to do. my buddy dan, who has clearly spent too much time with yanks, showed us his bb handgun, that looks a little too much like a real gun. he then proceeded to shoot my in the leg a few times, the welts are slightly less than a paintball welt. we have plans to all get one, a sixer of coors light, and run around in our skivvies with goggles on and shoot the crap out of each other. there will probably need to be some lynrd skynrd involved as well.
speaking of redneck stupidity, i got into a bit of an argument, as i tend to do, with some yank about iraq and terrorism. it was very enlightening. did you know that saddam was responsible for ‘90% of the terrorism in asia’? thats right, not even the middle east, all of asia. the xenophobia is almost worse than the homophobia. and im pretty sure the exact opposite was proven. but dont worry, he still holds out hope that wmd will be found. oh wait, again, the exact opposite was proven. not that i would ever hit anyone, but i had to leave after this prep school asshole said everyone in america had equal opportunity, for fear that the mass alcoholic consumption would bring out some sort of violence in me.
back to the happier times on the wedding dancefloor, much dancing with friend’s moms and sisters occured. in retrospect, im kind of disappointed in myself for not telling a friend’s mom that i love her, as i tend to do. around midnite, the crowd had thinned out to just us. church was bright and early for them the next day apparently. last song of the nite was stairway to heaven, and it seemed like a very good idea to do interprative dance to all 8 minutes of it. grabbing the rest of the submarine sandwich, we took the courtesy bus back to the hotel, indebted to the friendly driver who stopped to let us buy a case of miller high life at a variety store.
after the party was the hotel lobby, as tends to happen, followed by some drunken wandering outside. settling on the curb of the entrance to a salvation army (?), i all so briefly nodded off, causing my buddy jonny to huck a full can of miller high life at me. whether or not he intended to hit me in the forehead causing a bloody cut is unknown, but i do know that i didn’t even wake up.
and because the toilet was occupied, i do remember later on trying to pee in the shower of the hotel room, but kev turned the shower on. foiled again!