Wedded Hiss

To acquaint yourself with the stages of life, you could cozy up with a plastic-covered fold-out chart detailing 8 stages, conceptualized by a psychologist redundantly named Erik Erikson.  Shakespeare only came up with 7, possibly because he wrote about a man.  If he had written about a woman he would have needed 10 stages, 11 if the woman was married, 13 if she bore children.

The Prude’s life is organized a little differently.  The first stage was Attending Friend’s Birthday Parties.  The second was Attending Friend’s Weddings.  Then she moved to Stage III, Attending Friend’s Baby Showers.  Now she is comfortably ensconced in Stage IV: Attending Friend’s Children’s Weddings.

The Prude wholeheartedly approves of weddings.  They demonstrate all that is right with the world.  Purity, honor, people sitting in long organized rows, color coordination. (Although she bemoans the days when shoes were dyed to match dresses with puffed sleeves large enough to carry a tissue box.)

The particular wedding The Prude recently attended was the equivalent of a perfectly cooked noodle.  It was an al dente wedding.  The wedding party was well scrubbed and wholesome, the ceremony properly respectful, the reception well bred and well organized instead of raucous and rollicking. The Prude’s family looked handsome and clean-shaven with the exception of Mr. I’m-Not-a-Prude-I-Just-Married-One, whose cheeks and chin have not seen daylight since the previous millennium.

At this point you must be wondering: Has The Prude gone mad?  Has she lost her focus? Is this post entirely committed to APPROVAL?

Please.  I will never have an approval post without a warning label.  The Prude remains true to self. Continue reading for the WEDDED HISS.

The Prude disapproves, in so uncertain terms, of Wind at Weddings. As any astute wedding attendee realizes, even a proper indoor wedding eventually moves outdoors, to send the newly married couple off with the toss of a rice or ramen noodle packet, a cloud of saliva-filled bubbles, or a wave of tear-stained hankies.  And this is where the Wind, biding its time and twiddling its fingers while everyone was indoors, springs. 

It grabs men’s ties and blows them out perpendicularly to the men’s shirt buttons.  It plays gleefully with the bride’s veil for a moment before stuffing it in the groom’s mouth.  The Wind threatens The Prude’s dress (comprised of enough fabric to successfully create modest little bloomers for the entire Dallas Cowboy Cheerleading squad) forcing her to bunch it around her knees with one hand while blowing goodbye kisses with the other.  It puffs against men’s trousers, molding them to men’s legs to reveal knobby knees and sagging dress socks. 

The Wind.  The uninvited guest at every wedding. The Prude is afraid that no lecture will convince the Wind of its unwelcome status, so just consider this post your Wind Advisory.