Rock Island, Illinois, where the wedding was to be held, is in interesting place. In this case, interesting is a euphemism for scary and pathetic. Of the four Quad Cities, it’s by far the worst. As a whole the Quad Cities has more ugly people per capita than any other area in the country. Of that ugly, Rock Island is a whole special kind of ugly. People wander the streets aimlessly because they can no longer afford tape to hold up the tarp that replaced the broken window in their 1989 Chevy Cavalier. Every cigarette is laced with marijuana. Not one person has normal teeth. It’s rare to find more than three consecutive buildings operational at any given time. Several buildings look condemned but are boarded up lazily. Let’s put it this way: part of my job duties is to find packaging suppliers to help my company. I have two in Rock Island. One hires mentally and physically handicapped people to complete “easier” tasks. The other hires normal Rock Island citizens. Guess which one consistently performs better than the other? If you said, “Author, that’s a retarded question,” I’d say you’re doubly correct.
I bring this up because four days before the wedding Kelsey and I needed to go to an official Rock Island building to obtain a marriage license. Mapquest directions first took me to the nearby county jail/courthouse. I eventually found the correct building. Kelsey and I went in to the office excited to complete this major event in our lives. What we didn’t realize is the goal of all city employees is to suck the fun out of life and the will to live out of you. We tried joking with Frump, the desk clerk, but did not get even a smile. She made it abundantly clear the oath we were about to take was only valid in Rock Island, and we couldn’t get married anywhere else. We said we know. The oath then started. It was your standard answer-in-the-affirmative-when-asked oath. Only in Rock Island would the following question be asked however: “To your knowledge, have you ever been married previously?” Not to my knowledge.
With the wedding license out of the way and the wedding planned, we could relax and wait for family and friends to start pouring into town. Our first guests were to arrive Wednesday. Anne (my sister and a bridesmaid), Barb (Kelsey’s college roommate and bridesmaid), and Allison (Kelsey’s childhood friend and maid of honor) were the first three to arrive. At some point in the night, Joe, (Kelsey’s brother and a groomsmen) came over and Anne, he, and I played Rock Band while Kelsey, Allison, and Barb worried over the fact Nikki’s (Kelsey’s college roommate and bridesmaid) flight was cancelled and now had to spend the night with a stranger in Detroit. Really though, who hasn’t done that before? Then Rachael (Kelsey’s fifth and final bridesmaid and our designated third wheel) showed up. The house was getting packed. What wasn’t packed was anything for the honeymoon. This made both of us nervous, Kelsey more so because as a male, I can pack in five minutes for a trip of any given length. God bless our genetics.
I got a call from Ian who told me his connecting flight from Chicago to Moline had been cancelled. I told him to call Jeff and see if he could stay there. I then forgot to call Jeff and tell him I told Ian to do this. When I called Jeff an hour later he made sure to let me know how worthless I am when it comes to passing on prompt information.
The moment I knew the wedding had officially started was when a random mixture of four people listed above were playing Rock Band and a random woman I’d never seen before walked into the basement and started handing out Leinenkugels. Since a stranger that hands out free beer is better than a friend who doesn’t, I didn’t even flinch. Thirty seconds after The Stranger made herself at home, Kelsey’s Aunt Kris walked down the stairs. Kris played the music for our wedding. I mention this now only because she didn’t seem to understand the point of practicing for hours to master Rock Band when you could learn to play an actual instrument. Obviously she doesn’t understand that the goal of our generation is to find computer simulations for all formerly real activities. I eventually learned from Kris the strange woman who entered had a name, Cyle (with a hard c; that may be the wrong spelling but again, creative license) and was her partner. I learned this approximately two hours after being offered beer. I also learned Cyle wasn’t strange at all, just generous.
For the record, Kris is one of my favorite people on Earth for the following reasons: she introduced me to Starbucks; she not only understands why I alphabetize my movie collection, but she said people who think it’s silly I alphabetize my movie collection are fools; she brought me to a fetish store in San Francisco called, “Your Mother Doesn’t Know;” her dog is cool; and she played a beautiful guitar at the wedding.
With Nikki’s and Ian’s flights being cancelled, we had only one more person we expected to arrive that night: Kelsey’s Aunt Mindy. She eventually arrived a little after midnight, we greeted her at the airport, and Kelsey and I went home to sleep. We thought we were done with the airport for the time being.
We thought this incorrectly. One of my ushers, Justin, was scheduled to land at around 8:30 the following morning. I completely forgot about this. Originally I planned to have Ian pick Justin up from the airport, so I never made any sort of mental note to myself to follow through on this. To top it off, I put my phone on silent before going to sleep. The next morning, Kelsey and I woke up to her cell phone ringing. Caller ID told us Kelsey’s phone didn’t recognize the number. Kelsey and I both have an irrational fear of the phone, so we didn’t answer it. Now awake, I checked my phone to see Ian and Justin both called twice, and Ian texted me, “You gonna pick up Justin?” Justin had been at the airport for an hour.
He and I met as sophomores in high school. We bonded one night driving around late at night looking for a better party to be at then the one we left. We ended up driving by all the houses of all the girls we knew to see if they were awake. Being unbelievably creepy made for great bonding. We enjoyed each other in high school because we were both odd. He is a spastic individual, who is very loyal to those he respects. He’s currently in the Marines learning some top-secret stuff that he can’t tell us. He tends to start talking very fast when he gets worked up about something. I worked with him throughout high school at the Cedar Falls Lutheran Home. We wore purple shirts, black jeans, and served elderly people various flavors of pureed food. Every day after work we’d leave covered in dishwater and old person food. Justin somehow lost his virginity our senior year in high school when he stopped by a girl’s house after work wearing the purple and black and food. Even showered I couldn’t get anyone to have sex with me in high school. Also, my mom is convinced that Justin stole all of our spoons whenever he ate ice cream over at house. My mom might need serious psychological help.
At some point that day, I met with Damon, the former Baptist Minister and current employee of the retail corporation I once called my employer. We met to go over the final notes about the wedding, as he was to marry Kelsey and I.
At some point that day, Kelsey and I packed for the honeymoon.
At some point that day, I thought it was great so many people came to town for us.
At some point that day, I wondered how much a one-way to flight to Japan cost.
At some point that day, I found out it was out of my price range.
At some point that day, my old high school crush April called me. April is great, but one thing you must know about her is that if she calls, she will talk to you for well over an hour. Even though it was the day before my wedding, which she RSVPd for properly and would attend thank you very much, she wanted to talk just as normal.
At some point that day, I told April to stop talking and I’d talk to her more the next day.
You’d think with one day until d-day, there would be more stories from the day. Alas, there is not. I really should have skipped this section of the blog. It didn’t help that I wrote it half asleep in a chair after a long week. I woke up at one point to find I had written the sentence, “That’s when the tim and the iced.” Let’s go ahead and assign that phrase the meaning, “Let’s move on to something better.”
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