The Honeymoon

It’s time to use more creative license. At the hotel we took some pictures of us as a couple, took some pictures with the bridal party, joked, laughed, etc etc. We then got in a bus and drove to the wedding. The driver was a jerk. Yada yada. At the wedding, people started showing up, we hid in a room. We took more pictures. Let’s skip all that. It was fun, it was time consuming, it was part of the day, but nothing stands out as particularly story worthy after what was clearly the emotional apex of the blog. We all need some time to recover. I’m a fan of non-linear storytelling (see Lost). We all want to move into the ceremony and the celebration. In doing that now however, we’d have two emotional sections in a row followed by the honeymoon and our return home. That would be two emotional sections followed by two epilogues. The third Lord of the Rings movie tried that, and it didn’t work. Thus, while we all sit and think about how great of a couple Kelsey and I are, I’m going to explain the honeymoon. I suppose I should preface any section about the honeymoon with this: Spoiler Alert—we got married. I hope that doesn’t take any of the dramatic oomph out of my upcoming description of the ceremony.

I should also mention I really really want this blog to be done. Some could say, “Why don’t you just finish it then?” The answer: I can’t. I wanted to skip the honeymoon and the ceremony. Anyone reading this was probably at the ceremony and knows all about it. The honeymoon itself will read just like any other blog…me making fun of a situation I’m in. So here’s the deal: If you’re tired of reading, or tired of me, feel free to skip the honeymoon section. Come back to it later. Go ahead and finish. Call it a day. However, if you are an obsessive compulsve completist like myself, read on.

We had a two-legged honeymoon. The first portion of the honeymoon took place in New York City. Now, as much as I’d like someday to be a rich and famous celebrity, I don’t think it will ever happen. One, I’m way too lazy. Two, I can’t follow the celebrity creed and proclaim New York to be, “The greatest city in the world.” It’s not true. New York can’t possibly be the greatest city in the world because it is filled with about 8,000,000 New Yorkers. For those who haven’t met a real one, a New Yorker likes the Yankees, shouts obscenities at strangers because what do they care, they’re from New York, sells hot dogs on a street corner, and tries to sell you a city bus tour. My favorite New Yorker is the New Yorker that pretends to not speak English even though it states clearly in his shop door that he has worked and owned a business in Times Square for fifty years.

If New York is so bad, why did we choose to go there on what’s supposed to be the best trip of our lives? Because, this is Yankee Stadium’s final year and Kelsey and I wanted to see it before it died. It was Kelsey’s idea. Isn’t she great? On top of going to Yankee Stadium, we got to see the Yankees play the Red Sox, which was great for an antagonistic wee lad like me—I could wear Red Sox clothing and talk trash with people whose brains stopped evolving ages ago.

We arrived in New York around 9:30pm the night after the wedding. Neither one of us had slept more than three hours of quality sleep in the last couple of months, so we were both dead tired. Unfortunately our hotel room was in the heart of Times Square and its mere location made us feel guilty about wanting to go to bed. We decided to walk the streets. Times Square was packed with people walking around with no real plan or goal in life, trying to find a neat cheap trinket that said: I “heart shaped drawing” NY. Kelsey and walked for about forty minutes before we asked ourselves, “What the hell are we doing? This is stupid. Times Square sucks.” With nothing to do, we decided to check out a comedy club across the street from the hotel.

I like comedy. In fact, I love comedy. I don’t get why people are serious at all. Seriousness only leads to arguments which lead to sadness. My not taking anything seriously can have adverse side effects—my boss at my first job never “got me” because I didn’t pretend to be a big bad authority figure like he did—my wife gets irritated when I don’t feel like talking about a serious issue without interjecting awkward humor—people at my current job wonder if I in fact do anything productive at all. Oh well. I’m not saying I’m hilarious. I’m just saying I enjoy hilarity, and I enjoy critiquing those who are in the business of providing it.

At the comedy club we saw six stand-up comedians that firmly established the following: woman stand-ups who continuously say the word, “pussy,” all jive like—not funny. Sorry. I also learned that any time a club announces a comedian as been, “featured on Last Comic Standing,” and not, “a finalist on Last Comic Standing,” they are REALLY not funny. That means they have only one joke that made them worthy of being put on a watered down TV show’s commercial.

After the comedy club, we went back to the hotel room and fell immediately asleep (post coitus). The next day we continued to walk around the trash-filled streets of New York City. We wanted to go to Rupert’s Hello Deli, but it was closed. We did see Mr. Big from Sex and the City walk by us. We are now kind of famous because of this. A few hours after walking around Times Square growing sad and tired for a country who feels no shame when it comes to advertising, we went to Wicked on Broaday. Coming from a complete entertainment junky, I hereby declare Wicked to be the greatest two and a half hour entertainment experience ever. One, the Wizard of Oz just kicks butt. Two, it’s always great when stories make the evil characters sympathic. And three, if you watch the play and listen to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” you’ll notice all sorts of strange coincidences. Yep.

After Broadway, we sped walk back to the hotel, changed clothes, washed off our feet, put on our matching Red Sox gear, and walked towards the subway. We were given specific instructions by the hotel clerk how to board the subway and get to Yankee Stadium. The only problem—for some reason New York had shut off most of the entrances to the subway. This led to a street packed of tourist Red Sox fans not knowing where the hell to go. Like all Go Americans, none of us wanted to admit this. Kelsey and I casually followed a group of people who looked like they knew. Frustrated, Kelsey finally asked the guy we followed if he knew how to get to Yankee Stadium. He did not. We eventually found someone who said they did, and the idiot group of people in Red Sox clothing naively followed him underground. Luckily, he brought us to the subway and not some underground slave camp. And boy were we ever glad to be off the hot street! There was nothing like cramming into a below ground sub with broken air conditioning along with hundreds of other sweaty baseball fans. Everyone made the same Red Sox versus Yankees jokes. It became clear to both Kelsey and I we were not going to take the subway home. It was obnoxious and smelly enough without intoxicants and Theos.

When we arrived at Yankee Stadium, everyone started to call us out for the shirts we wore—even cops. Once inside the stadium we were able to see what Yankee Stadium was all about: inconveniencing you, the consumer. The concession lines were too long and bled into the walkway so as to prevent anyone from walking to their seat. The people who were truly passionate about their Yankee baseball moonlighted as drunks, so they were crude and completely disrespectful. The bathrooms had entrance and exit doors, but New Yorkers used both as entrance doors. The New Yorkers would get furious when the entrance line at the exit door moved slower than the entrance line at the entrance door. Once in our seats, the second to last bleacher row in left field, we met the Yankees fans seated next to us. One was a Latino man named Julio. The other was a true blue New Yawker named Ted whose wife and two friends rooted for the Red Sox. They started the evening very friendly. Then they started to drink. And drink. And drink. Infinite infinite. Julio started to get really crude with his comments. His favorite activity was to profanely ask the definition of Red Sox players names. “What the F is an Ortiz?” he’d ask. “What the F is a Papelbon?” he’d shout. Because names have to mean something. “What the F is a Coco?” I answered him: it’s a bean, primarily used in chocolate. Julio, offended by my awesome trash talk said, “I’m f’in Latino. I think I know what cocoa beans are.” Good for him.

As for Ted, I’m 95% sure his wife left him after the game. He got absolutely annihilated, shouted at everyone around him, tripped over his seats and fell on top of the woman seated in front of him, hit his wife when the Red Sox scored, etc. After the 900th time he shouted, “Red Sox suck,” I asked him why it mattered if the Yankees beat the Red Sox if the Sox suck so bad. Confused, he turned to Kelsey and asked, “Who the F is this guy?” That’s my second bit of awesome trash talk. Don’t make me bust out my “your mother” jokes.

The game ended in the tenth inning. The Yankees won. Manny Ramirez could have won the game in the top of the ninth, but he decided not to lift the bat off his shoulder in a well-publicized loafing that will net him an additional $40 million over the course of his career than he would have got if he tried hard and swung the bat. Life.

While I’m not an ardent fan of the Red Sox this year—I root for all teams save for the Yankees—seeing the Yankees win still pissed me off. Because of this, while I walked out of the stadium I started to shout and clap, “Tampa Bay Tampa Bay,” until Kelsey told me to stop before I got us killed. (For those who don’t follow baseball, Tampa Bay is in first place) A very ugly woman told me I shouldn’t be shouting Tampa Bay in Red Sox clothing. Since no one will care about our actual exchange, let’s just say she had zero facts straight, and I was able to relieve some of my frustration over the Yankees’ win by arguing with her. Kelsey was not amused. We were hot, we were irritated, and we decided not to get on the subway. Unfortunately, there weren’t any cabs around, so we started to walk up a random street in the Bronx. I felt like the night might end with me purchasing a rapper a cigar.

Long story short, we found a cab, we got to the hotel, we slept three more hours, went to the airport the next day, spent twelve hours in planes or airports, landed in Aruba, got on a bus, rode said bus to our resort, discovered that Aruban McDonalds have Chips a’Hoy McFlurries, walked into our resort, checked into our resort, went to our room, left our room, ate at a buffet, and went back to our room. At this point, I had to both make brown potty and shave my face. Kelsey said she’d wait in the room because even married people don’t poo in the same room, and then we could go out and see what our resort had to offer. I was in the bathroom for three, maybe four minutes. When I came out, Kelsey was dead asleep. It was 8:30. There would be no love-making upon the shores of Aruba that eve. Instead of waking her up, I made a delicious drink with our in-room liquor dispensor (all rooms should have these), grabbed my notebook, and started what will eventually become my best-selling tell-all book. Four hours later, I was happy, drunk, and ready to sleep.

The next day we were able to discover our resort…and it was magnificent. It felt like a palace. I apologize in advance for a lack of compelling stories coming out of Aruba. Kelsey and I both grew up with fathers who like to do things on vacation. Because of this, Kelsey and I both grew up wanting to do nothing on vacation. Instead of spending one hundred dollars each day on some touristy Aruban activity, we decided to take advantage of the all-inclusive resort we’d already paid for.

Here was our Aruba: We’d wake up around 8:30-9:00am, eat breakfast, sit at the pool, read, occasionally drink, eat lunch (for me, always pizza and fries), sit at the pool, read, occasionally drink, eat supper (for me, always pizza and fries), walk around the resort, occasionally drink, read, go to sleep. We snorkelled one day and shopped another, but other than that, we just relaxed. I read about six Kurt Vonnegut books. Though that is probably fairly obvious to anyone whose read his books and read the introduction to this blog.

I don’t know if I’ve ever blogged about my all-inclusive trips to Mexico. Let’s just say I spent a majority of the time drinking in a pool on those trips. I had every intention of doing the same in Aruba. Unfortunately Arubans make the drinks entirely too strong. You are served a drink in a cup a little bit large than a Dixie filled with approximately two shots worth of alcohol. Not knowing this, I told Kelsey the drinks will be weak and we could drink as much as we wanted. Thus the first day, after Kelsey got thirteen hours of sleep, we started to drink before we ate any food. One hour and four drinks later Kelsey said she didn’t feel good. She ran upstairs to the room and promptly threw up all over the bathroom. She then passed out for another five hours. Romance! Don’t worry though, she eventually woke up and Arubanly sexed me.

Aruba is an interesting place. It’s so windy that the trees actually grow in leaning over. It has no real culture of its own. It sells some Dutch merchandise, because it used to be occupied by the Dutch, but other than that, it’s essentially an American island. While this meant I didn’t have the opportunity to take a hackneyed tour of the Aruban countryside, I was able to use American dollars everywhere. It should be noted the ATMs didn’t have surchages. I could access my money for free in Aruba when the grocery store down the street from my house charges me $2.50. Life.

Snorkelling was an awesome experience. It was like swimming in a rich man’s tropical aquarium. A fish bit me.

A big concern Kelsey had going into to the trip was whether or not I’d get a sunburn. For those who haven’t seen me lately, I’m pale. I’m one shade above an albino. Don’t worry though everyone, I stood up and happily lathered 45 SPF sun tan lotion on myself every two hours. I got a dark tan. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very deep tan. In fact, it disappeared during our three hour layover in Chicago on the flight home.

By the time the trip ended, we were ready to go home. We missed our dog. We missed our house. We wanted to start life together. After another twelve hours in airports and planes, we arrived back in Moline. Kelsey’s parents surprised us by picking us up at the airport and bringing along our bizarre little dog. This turned out to be a bad idea, as our dog has an inexplicable fear of luggage. Kelsey’s parents surprised us further when we arrived home to an immaculate house (it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks because, as mentioned, the wedding threw up all over house), cleaned up our hideous yard (we had weed trees), and built shelves in our garage (we can fit both cars in there now).

Most of the honeymoon I won’t describe. I don’t really feel like letting you in. That trip belongs to Kelsey and me. Besides, it’s time to move on, to move back. It’s time to cover the ceremony.