One of the best things about getting engaged is that people give you stuff. I had appreciated this for a while, but only after this weekend am I able to truly appreciate the sheer stuff potential of my impending nuptials. Meli's Bridal Tea happened on Saturday, and she returned from Orange County with a car that was positively brimming with stuff.
Mostly kitchen stuff. Meli is excited about plates, bowls and spoons in a way that I will never understand. But I usually manage to win the argument. Here's how it goes:
Meli: Look! Look at this plate! Isn't it beautiful!
Me: Yes, it's very nice. I'm sure it'll be very good for keeping my food off of things while I eat it.
Meli: I'm excited about our dishes. They're our dishes. We're building a life together. Why don't you care about us?
Me: Look, I'd be happy eating off paper plates with sporks for the rest of my life as long as I'm with you.
Meli: [Guilty silence.]
Me: That's what I thought. Now get me a beer. You can use the new Villeroy & Boch bottle opener to open it.
But there are also cool things. Like a coffee maker that grinds its own beans. That got me thinking about all the different beans I could use it on. Could I make coffee out of pinto beans? How about lima beans? What about M&Ms? Could I put a banana in there? What would happen?
My aunt got Meli a "Wedding Day Survival Kit" from Frederick's of Hollywood. The fact that the first thing ever to enter my home from Frederick's of Hollywood was purchased by my aunt is more than a little disturbing, but fortunately there's nothing any dirtier in there than a rather ornate white garter. It has things like chalk(??), a sewing kit, a cyanide capsule, hand wipes, a surprise party, you know, things a girl needs when she's about to marry a great guy like me. The book on Catholic divorce and annulment that Meli's mother is reading was not included in the kit. Thankfully.
On the more emotional end, the day saw a great deal of towels. This means that we have to get rid of some of our old towels, which saddens me for some reason. But I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Cynthia for wrapping her towels in a way that can only have been inspired by our conversation last weekend. It's good to see that my incoherent ramblings about bare-legged strippers did some good beyond the amusement of my friends and the consternation of the staff.
So, thanks everyone for all the stuff. Now I just have to find a way to rid Meli of her desire to sleep with the new stirfry pan.
I would like to make it known that the [guilty silence] is a figment of Matt's imagination. I feel no guilt for liking nice things, nor do I think a spork is the measure of a marriage.
quiet you! i'm entitled to my editorial embellishments. tune in next week to hear how i got shot at the castro halloween party.
Did someone say SHOTS???!!! I'm there
That was you!?!! Dude, I'm so sorry. My trigger finger has been acting up.
I was rather unexcited about the plates and what not, until I had a revelation...
Think back to your early childhood, and eating cereal on a Saturday morning. Remember the bowl that you ate from? (at least in my case) those were the bowls that my parents received for their wedding! a dozen years later their son was eating frosted flakes from them.
With that thought the gravity of my impending nuptials hit me. Spoons, towels, and plates are the bricks one uses to builds a life with another.
Or, at least, they are the artifacts that remain long after the wedding pictures are packed away in the attic and the novelty of being newlywed has worn thin.
screw that john. you're just horny for flatware, like the rest of us.
Now that I've figured out the wonders of our bean-grinding time-programmable coffee maker, even Matt has been won over. He'll even drink out of the dainty china coffee cup.