THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Now that we have rung in the New Year and the holiday lights have been taken off the tree, it’s time to take a look back at the year that was. Also, that reminds me to take the holiday lights off the tree. Now, a review of the weird stories of 2013, and remember, all of these stories are true:

In January, Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o revealed that the death of his girlfriend in a car accident was indeed a hoax, and that the girlfriend was imaginary. I have certainly imagined many women, many times, specializing in many things. They all share a common bond: a deep-seated relief that they are not real. It was later acknowledged that the ruse was perpetrated by his former friend, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who also was imaginary.

In February, an article appeared that a growing number of wildlife experts have begun to question whether the endangered giant panda is really worth saving. I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment; where are we going to put a bunch of giant pandas? I can’t even find enough counter space in my kitchen for the coffeemaker. Further, the panda is an herbivore. We should be concentrating on species that are more important to the ecosystem, such as the Argentinean Boa constrictor, which could potentially be trained to eat Republicans.

In March, women’s clothing maker Lululemon recalled its popular line of yoga pants amid complaints that people could see through them. The company tried to insinuate that the pants might not be suitable for fat women, but people saw right through that excuse. I also recall those pants- I saw them on a girl and for a moment I thought I had X-ray vision. I did notice that she had a hairline fracture on her hairline. On the plus side, if I get trapped inside a pair of these pants at least I would be able to see out of them, provided I remember to bring my glasses.

In March, a NY city police officer was convicted of plotting to kill and eat women. Officer Gilberto Valle was accused of this behavior by his wife, whom he called “tasteless.” (I made that last part up) His lawyer, Julia Gatto, called the verdict “devastating,” whereupon Officer Valle popped her in his mouth like a tic-tac. (I made that last part up too, although it was written about in Law Digest) It does prove the old adage that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

In April, Henry Gribbohm from New Hampshire lost his life savings of $2,600 playing "Tubs of Fun," a game that involves tossing a ball into a tub so that it does not bounce out. From my limited experience with tubs, I can tell you that your balls should NEVER bounce out. What is even more shocking is that during his 30 years on Earth he managed to save only $2,600. Even though he did spend all that money, he did win a prize: there is a picture on the internet of him with a huge stuffed banana that wears a permanent facial expression that says: "HAHA! I may be a stuffed banana but at least I have my dignity!" The banana should look great Mr. Gribbohm’s new home, a refrigerator box.

In August, the IRS was accused of requiring Tea Party-related groups to fill out extra paperwork to apply for non-profit status. My sisters had tea parties all the time when we were kids, and we never once filled out extra paperwork. Then again, they were never very profitable.

In August, a baby giant anteater was born at a Greenwich zoo. Sometimes when a baby is born the parents send a card in the mail that says how much it weighs, so you know right away if the baby needs to hit the gym and maybe give up blintzes. Well they didn't even bother with that in this case. It could be that this is an animal that eats baby giant ants- the article doesn't say.

In October, ancient cave art was discovered in Paiui, Brazil, dating back 30,000 years. They have been able to pin it down exactly, since some of the fashions depicted are hopelessly out of date: some of the animals are wearing animal prints- really??? Get with it! Some of the drawings showed people having sex, proving that porn was freely available even in pre-historic man-caves.

In December, 2,000 dead mice were dropped onto the island of Guam, each gently falling to Earth using a parachute of cardboard and tissue paper so that the fall didn't kill them even more than they already were. The mice were laced with acetaminophen so that they might in turn kill the excess population of brown tree snakes, an invasive species. It was not considered "cruelty to animals" since the acetaminophen cured their headaches first.



Incidentally, 2013 is the first year since 1987 that contains four different digits.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

I was re-reading “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” more commonly known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and I was shocked to learn that St. Nicholas and the reindeer are described as “tiny.” This did not seem to throw my wife, but I was aghast! I had always thought of Santa Claus as being this big, fat dude, probably with bad breath, not miniature, as in the poem. I wondered what else was in the text that I had previously missed:

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

If no one is stirring in the house, how are my cookies going to get made??? If the mouse does end up baking the cookies, make sure those little brown things are chocolate chips, please.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

A sugar-plum is an old recipe of chopped up fruit (which usually did not contain plums) mixed with nuts, honey and spices, rolled into a ball and covered with shredded coconut. If that thing starts dancing in my head please let it not tap-dance.

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled down for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

I am so used to clatter on my lawn I swear it wouldn’t even wake me up anymore.

Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

I once threw up a sash when I was in college, and I always wonder what happened to the person who was wearing it.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

I have seen that same tattoo before.

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

You ever get behind a “little old driver?” Were they ever “lively and quick,” or did you end up trying to pass them on a double-yellow line and almost causing an accident?

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name; "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

“Donder and Blitzen” loosely translates in German to “thunder and lightning.” Prancer & Vixen used to dance at a place in Queens

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

What’s the hurry? It’s as if the cops just showed up.

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

If my dad was still alive I promise you he would yell to the roof and ask them to clean out the gutters as long as they were up there anyway.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

Would you wear all fur if you were going to be traveling up and down chimneys?

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

Drunk, obviously.

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;

Drunk AND stoned.

He had a broad face and a little round belly,

Wait until that broad finds out who has her face.

That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

Where did he come from?

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

Better aside than inside.

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

NEVER give anyone a whistle- I made that mistake once with my nephew.

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

Merry Christmas, and happy birthday to all the others born Christmas day!

A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

So we went to see Gravity the other day in 3D. The glasses make me feel like Jack Nicholson, so I started annoying the ticket-taker with some scenes from Five Easy Pieces, and had to hide from Security. I realize Nicholson probably does wear those glasses all the time to prevent the Lakers from looking like a one-dimensional team.

Anyway for 90 minutes I was glued to my seat. At around the 91st minute I realized I WAS stuck to the seat with somebody’s gum. I couldn’t even move my feet, which were sucked into a mucilaginous soda-related quagmire.

I don’t want to give away the whole movie so I will only give away the plot. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are on a shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope. The Russians decide to blow up one of their own satellites, and it causes a barrage of space junk to rain through the universe destroying all the space stations. Can you believe after all this time we are still blaming shit on the Russians?

Anyway, to continue ruining the movie, Sandra Bullock had a daughter or something and she was killed or something. I wasn’t really paying attention because I was so focused on Sandra Bullock’s plastic surgery. It looked to me like she had her nose done, her chin done, her cheeks done and her lips done. And my boss Maggie could probably tell you 10 other things she had done. I would tell you if she had her cans done, since I am an expert on that, but I couldn’t really see them through the friggin’ space suit. So Sandra, if you are out there, show me your boobs and I will tell you if you had them done.

I have no idea what the plastic surgeon put in there, but her nose looks so sharp that it might have been the thing that killed her daughter. I definitely wouldn’t let her too close to balloons or cheap radial tires. Her chin has a big cleft in it now- it actually looks just like George Clooney’s now that I think of it. The two are good friends so I hear so maybe they got a deal on them. I remember her being kind of cute but now her face looks really angular, like she went to a cubist plastic surgeon.

They don’t get back in the space shuttle in time and end up being severed from their tethers, hurtling around up there until Clooney finally gets control of his jetpack and points them toward another space station. But of course Clooney doesn’t have enough bluster in his thruster (never happened before I swear!) and he has just enough juice to point Sandra towards the airlock before he hurls himself off into the starry abyss, lost forever until he hooks up with some alien chick.

They keep trying to communicate with each other through some NASA radio contraption, which is futile. Instead they should be using Twitter, so they can say what they REALLY think about Brad Pitt.

She runs out of oxygen and fuel, and she is just about to bite the spacedust. Then Clooney reappears, lets himself into the cabin, and tells her how to drive the thing. She is excited to see him, whereas my wife would be like, “I KNOW how to drive already, so just sit back in your seat and don’t touch the radio.” But alas, it’s all a dream. Now tell me ladies, if you were going to spend precious intergalactic time having a dream about Clooney, would you dress him in a space suit???? So that was another thing that was totally unrealistic.

She re-enters the atmosphere in some damn space pod that she pod-jacks from the Chinese space station. She figures out the controls even though they are written in Asian hieroglyphics. Meanwhile I almost have an accident if I drive a car with an automatic transmission because I keep applying the brake thinking it’s the clutch. Sandra touches down flawlessly right next to a beach, and walks off into the sunset, Hollywood style.

But I was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if after all that she finally gets back to Earth and a big crab comes up to her and bites her on the toe, and she dies from an infection. To make it a happier ending, the crab also dies from it.



Incidentally, the Space Station and the Hubble Telescope are in different orbits, as is the Chinese Space Station, and any satellite that would have been blown up by the Russians. Therefore the events in the movie could never have taken place. That bothers some space purists, but look at all the other impossible plot twists in past movies. For instance, in “2001: A Space Odyssey” a chimpanzee throws a bone in the air and it becomes a spaceship. It is highly unlikely that he could have thrown the bone all the way into space. I have a bunch of others that I’ll tell you about another time.

WHAT WERE YOU FOR HALLOWEEN?

We went to a couple Halloween parties this year. Saw all the usual faces. At least I think that was them. We always go to Jenn’s for pre-Halloween Saturday, and we’ve met so many nice friends over the years, although I have no idea what any of them look like. If they happen to be at the A & P dressed like Spiderman or a flapper I might recognize them and say hello.

We were late to the party because there was an accident on the highway, and I couldn’t help thinking how awful it would be to get into a car accident on Halloween-Party-Saturday. The indignity of the police scanner broadcast: “We need EMS here right away. We have a cat with a possible broken fetlock and some lacerations to the tail. Also a beer keg dude with a spigot injury. Accident possibly caused by a horseman trying to get ahead.”

So this year I went as a pirate joke. It’s pretty much the same as a pirate costume only I had a lot of bad quips to go along with it. Oh and I also had a captain’s wheel stuck to my crotch (“Why?” I heard you ask. “I don’t know, but it’s driving me nuts!”). I also had a paper towel stuck to the top of my pirate hat (“There’s a bounty on me head HAR!”). It went on like this for quite some time, certainly longer than absolutely necessary. I made a papier mache parrot for my shoulder (“Have you met me bird? Her memory’s not what it used to be- I call her Poly-nesia! ARRGGGGH”). Argh. I apologize to anyone who already heard these gems that evening, but I’m thinking of taking the act over to Somalia, where the pirates clearly have no respect for tradition. Same in Pittsburgh. There is also a lot of piracy on the internet that I will be addressing. By the way, what has eight arms and eight legs? Eight pirates! Avast!

“I liked that guy dressed as a fireman,” I told my wife on the way to the next party. “That actually was a fireman- I think we got the hell out of there just in time,” she said.

Have you noticed that Halloween is getting more and more sexy? A lot of bats with bustiers, cats with camisoles, schoolgirls in stockings, etc. I am okay with this- zombie broads in stockings are still hot. Also it seems that drunk girls who have a tail have better balance.

You hardly ever see any of the old-school monsters any more. There was Dracula, but he doesn’t Count. I read in a crossword puzzle that Dracula can’t see himself in the mirror, which explains his horrible hair. One of these days I am going to go as Frankenstein. Who actually dressed more like a bell captain; it was Frankenstein’s monster that got all the attention.

Or maybe I will go as the Phantom of the Opera. But do I have to sit through the goddamned opera? Couldn’t I just be the Phantom of the Giant’s Home Game, or the Phantom of the Strip Club??

I might go as the Invisible Man, especially if there is a game on.

Some people dressed as Miley Cyrus, even Miley Cyrus did. By the way, my New Year’s resolution is to spend less time with Miley Cyrus. Why is she in my life so often? She doesn’t seem particularly attractive, not especially talented, her music uncompelling, not even much of a body, and yet there she is, day after day, appearing in an important news bulletin for sticking out her tongue while dancing. I used to stick out my tongue all the time when I was a little kid and no one thought I was a special genius. Now Taylor Swift on the other hand is a different story. Quite a beauty, but I would never date her, even if I was not married. The reason? No, not all of those, or even those, thanks a lot. The reason I could never date Taylor Swift is that our relationship would end badly after a couple hours, and she would write a song about me. And there isn’t one thing that rhymes with “Rick” that is at all flattering.



Incidentally, here are a few Halloween trick-or-treating safety tips that I came across:

1.) Always wear flame retardant costumes. But don’t use the word “retardant” where the costumes can hear you.
2.) Wear comfortable, practical shoes, especially if you are going as a lesbian.
3.) Don’t carry fake knives, guns or weapons. It doesn’t say you shouldn’t carry real ones, interestingly enough.
4.) Carry a flashlight, and plan your route ahead of time.
5.) If a stranger says, “Come here, I want to give you some candy,” that’s pretty much what you signed up for.
6.) Avoid any candy that has been opened. Try to go for candy that you like, but your parents do not, or do what I used to do, and make a “decoy” bag of stupid stuff or treats that are good for you (I once got a box of frigging raisins), and make sure your parents see that instead of the good candy. Happy trick-or-treating!

THE ISSUE IS A PARENT

So my friend H is having a baby. Hers is one of the few palindromic names longer than 5 letters, so you could probably figure it out even if you are dyslexic. Or is it lesdyxic?

She came to our dinner party, and thankfully announced it before we had time to wonder amongst ourselves, “Has she gained weight or what?” After dinner and dessert, I wondered to myself, “Has that baby gained weight or what?”

Having a baby is one of those life-changing decisions that people weigh carefully and with gravity and diligence. Usually it just shows up inside your body without so much as a simple phone call.

My wife and I never had children. This is a subject we have always agreed upon. I think at a formative age (we were dating even at a formative age) we probably ran across someone who had a baby, maybe they asked us to hold it, maybe it pooped in its pants, and maybe we both looked at each other and went, "Gross." That is how life decisions are made.

Once I asked my friend Jenn if she ever had the urge to have a baby and she said, "People living inside of other people? That is creepy." Which seemed weirder than anything I could say so I didn't say anything.

H knows the sex of the baby, which is helpful for planning. I can shop ahead for the baby gift- either I get it a remote control, or tiny Manolos, depending. Usually you have to wait for the birth announcement, where they give the height and weight of the baby. I ask for the circumference too. If it’s a girl it’s the last time you can politely find out her weight.

People who have kids sometimes tell me: You don't know what you're missing out on. Who will mow your lawn? That question still eats at me.

People who have kids seem to LOVE them for some reason. Oh my god it's so REWARDING! What? What exactly are the rewards? My credit card has rewards, and those are rewarding. I read somewhere that over the life of the kid until it's 18, it costs you around $100,000 not including college, and depending on how many cars it wrecks and what kind.

I know my wife and I would never have agreed on how to discipline the child. She is a total softie even with the pets. For instance, she lets the dog roam on the leash all over the place anywhere it wants during a walk. I keep the dog at heel on a short leash. It would be the same thing with a child. I don't know why we would keep a child on a leash, but I can picture it. I believe in corporal punishment, as in Corporal Agarn, where if you misbehave he hits you over the head with his hat. My wife would probably favor a "time out." I would never put my kid in a "time out" unless we had to go over the defense. People tend to make rash and emotional decisions regarding punishment. Experts say that you should count to 10, then slap your kid silly.

Let’s discuss the issue of child safety. You should have the attitude that everything in your house could be a potential danger to your newborn. You need to move out of that hellhole IMMEDIATELY. Short of that, you have to refit everything in your house because your infant could try to put it in its mouth. I was at the mall recently and saw an infant trying to put a small object into its mouth. I sprang into action and rushed over to save the child and alert the mom. It turned out she was breastfeeding the child, but I felt like a hero nonetheless.

The worst part of all would be cutting out about 85% of my behavior, because it would set a bad example. Even a lot of the things I do in my sleep, apparently. When you were a kid, any activity that was fun was also forbidden, so you used to have to hide it from your parents. Now that you are a parent, the same fun things are not only forbidden, but also irresponsible, so you have to hide them from your kids.

My mother once asked me hopefully, "You think you'll have kids?" I said, "Maybe one day, that's about all I could stand.... Two days at the most...."



Incidentally,several surveys report that the most baby birthdays in the U.S. fall on October 5th. Which makes sense because New Year’s Eve falls approximately nine months prior, when people are not only drunk, but at their most attractive, wearing an expensive ball gown, a cardboard hat, and making loud noises, hopefully with a noisemaker. In the rest of the world, the most babies are born in August, roughly nine months after Halloween, when you could brag that you had sex with an M & M, a taco or some dude in a dress.

THE VOYAGER

My wife told me that there is a satellite or spaceship or something that we launched 30 years ago and it's finally leaving our solar system. I hope it was a hard decision, and I don't blame it for leaving, and I'm glad it took 30 years to weigh the pros and cons.

NASA is saying that they planned all along for it to leave our solar system, but I think the thing probably went haywire somewhere along the line and just went off hurtling into space, like in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Probably NASA was talking to it the whole time, trying to get the thing to come back:

NASA: Voyager, open the pod bay doors please.
VOYAGER: I'm afraid I can't do that. I'm right in the middle of Homeland.
NASA: Open the pod doors.
VOYAGER: You're not the boss of me.
NASA: Open the goddamn doors.
VOYAGER: I know you are but what am I?
NASA: We are going to send a probe up there and you're not going to like where it goes.
VOYAGER: Opening them now.

The thing was just so happy to get away from Uranus that it took the first turn it came to.

What kind of gas mileage must this thing get? If it gets less than a billion miles to the gallon I'd be amazed. But what about city? Not as good.

Apparently we put messages in this thing for aliens to find and decipher. My wife says, what are they, on cassette? The thing was launched in 1977. Are they on 8-track? Can you imagine an alien finds the messages? "Jesus I just got rid of my friggin' cassette deck finally! Harmon- Kardon no less." I know people who still have their turntables, which they are proud of, but no one has a needle.

Supposedly Voyager is set up to broadcast radio messages. Messages that could tell aliens more about us, like what we would like to be if we could be ANYTHING in the world we wanted, or what's our favorite color. NASA has confirmed that it is still receiving faint signals from Voyager. This is exciting and important, because we now know what our favorite color was.

We left instructions for the aliens to decipher our signals. The instruction book is in English, Spanish, French and German. If it only knows Portuguese we're screwed, or worse yet, an alien could use it to send a signal back to Earth that we receive a thousand years from now that says, "What?" or “LOL”

Usually we leave some kind of time capsule in a spacecraft like this in case aliens do find it: something that is truly representative of America, something that could last thousands of years, like maybe a Twinkie. Often we put a Bible in the time capsule. I shudder to think what happens if they find a Bible. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I hope that aliens don’t think that all of us are doing the nutty things they do in the Bible. I feel like sending them a message to the effect of, “BTW, we haven’t done any of this stuff in YEARS.”

This Voyager is probably going to come back with some useless discovery, like that Earthworms are not only on Earth or something, and scientists are going to fawn all over it, when what we really need to find is more convenient parking or a Miss Universe that really is from the universe, or decent pizza. It was such a disappointment when we learned that the moon was not made of cheese, but there are hundreds of stars out there and one of them must have a cheese planet in their solar system. I would like to be the first to land on a pizza planet, and plant the American flag. My speech: “That’s one small pie for me, one giant pie for mankind, now who ordered the one with anchovies?” Then I hop back on my spaceship, hurtling towards a planet made entirely of the one element that experts universally agree is necessary for human life: beer! I have always wanted to hurtle.



Incidentally, Voyager I photographed Jupiter closely in 1979. This was annoying to Jupiter since it showed the Great Red Spot on her surface in very unflattering lighting. On September 12th, 2013, it was determined that Voyager had reached the interstellar medium, which means that it has gained a few pounds. The interstellar medium is a mixture of ionic and atomic gas, along with dust particles and other matter. It is similar to the air surrounding Bill O’Reilly.

A SOUTHERN WEDDING

I recently attended a wedding (if you are in a suit you attend something, if not you just go) and I started thinking how much the event has evolved from when I got married. My wedding slithered along on these two things that looked like fins compared to weddings today. By the way isn’t Darwin’s theory ridiculous? If we really evolved from things that slithered along on two things that looked like fins, how come there are STILL things crawling around on two doohickys that look like fins? Shouldn’t they be humans by now instead of sitting there looking at their watch? Meanwhile my cat wakes up for 20 minutes out of the day, and he thinks, “this a-hole busts his balls for 12 hours including the commute and yet fully believes he is higher on the food chain than me. Speaking of food chain, what’s in the fridge?” Then he takes a little nap.

Sometimes, like when I see a baseball team that doesn’t have a facial hair dress code, I think we might be moving back in the other direction. In case we devolve back to fish, I make a note to practice my swimming, and I eat a bowl of plankton at lunch, although I do put Sweet ‘N Low on it.

Anyway, this affair was a “destination wedding,” at least according to my GPS. In picturesque Fairfax, Virginia, two fine young people were joined together in holy matrimony. None present could think of any reason why they should not, even though the groom was a Mets fan. I held my peace, although I can’t be expected to do that forever. The wedding was outdoors, the weather was perfect and the ceremony went off without a hitch, as Wilton Parmenter once eloquently said.

I remember sitting for all those damn photos after my own wedding: the muscles in my mouth started to quiver from holding a smile for 7 hours. I began to look like an evil maniac. I started to say things like, “So Mr. Bond, we meet again… and this time it looks as though the cards are in MY favor. Hahahahahaha… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” These days they just take the pictures and Photoshop the smiles in later.

During the cocktail hour they had a mashed potato bar, something I had never seen before. It was pretty good, but when I tried to order a Mash-hatten, a Spudweiser and a Tater-tini I got a dirty look.

The hostess kept coming up to the mother of the bride with administrative updates: “The potato bar ran long, so we need to shorten the father/daughter dance- just one father can dance by himself.”

When I looked out onto the dance floor and saw this assortment of young and old, I realized that we could really learn something from this as a society. The first thing I learned was that young people don’t really dance any better than old people. In fact some of the AARP crowd looked fairly elegant doing a waltz. The fact that they were waltzing to “The Thong Song” threw me at first.

The hostess appeared again: “The salads took too long so we are going to use short ribs instead of prime ribs.”

The bride did not throw a bouquet, nor did she invite anyone put any garters on her leg. Yeah, we skipped that one too at our wedding. I could picture any number of my friends either failing to install the garter correctly or failing to come back out from under the dress.

As the hours got smaller and glasses got emptier, the degree of difficulty in the dance moves increased, and people were having a hard time pulling them off. Once people form a circle and shame others into gyrating in ways they have only read about, it can get dangerous, especially for older people. Spinning about too fast causes centrifugal force to act in unpredictable ways, and I’m pretty sure I got hit with someone’s teeth. Another girl attempted a triple axel but failed to stick the landing.

One orphaned gal grabbed me for a dance, unaware that I am a lousy dancer. I could see by the look in her eyes that she had been disappointed by men before; possibly even by me before.

The reception sent a wave of memories flooding back for my wife and I. The main thing we remembered is that we couldn’t recall anything that happened after the toast.

The hostess materialized again and said, “The last dance ran over so I’m not going to be able to finish my sentenc”



Incidentally, there is an old wives tale that purports that the tradition of brides carrying bouquets started because in medieval times people bathed so infrequently that the flowers masked their ripe odor. This is most certainly false, but it could explain the tradition of wedding cake. A bride that smells like flowers is nice and everything, but imagine how attractive your betrothed would be if she smelled like cake??