No, but I went to a wedding breakfast in one.
“Were you born in a barn?” my mom used to ask me when I was a big pig growing up. I can honestly answer you a no on that, but I can say that I spent the weekend in one…for a wedding.
As I wrote a few months ago, I can’t stand weddings. I am very much a fan of the institution of marriage, but weddings are the worst, and this is of close family. The main problem for me, is that I have to spend more than 14 hours being dressed in a suit, on a Saturday, and not getting paid. I will do a lot of uncomfortable and crazy things for money, but when I’m not getting paid, I get very much bitter.
Back to the barn. The groom grew up in a tiny little town on a very large farm. It was so close to the mountains, that I was wondering if we were going to need to get out our climbing equipment just to get to the venue. It was a breakfast in a barn. Luckily there were no farm animals or hay in the barn, but I was worried that we were going to have cowpies as part of the breakfast. One positive note was that I got to see ladies with high heels try to navigate the steep dirt driveway climbing up to the barn. I kept hoping that one of them would have fallen and not got up. No such luck.
The breakfast proceeded without drama, so much so that I heard the word “Nice” and “kind” almost to the point where it was going to make me throw up. I just kept hearing how nice the couple was to each other and I wondered secretly how long it would last.
Just when the crack of dawn ended and the breakfast was over, we got to go to the wedding venue. We were ushered to a room and waited…and waited and waited. Visions of many movies rushed to my mind. The Wedding Singer…other movies where the wedding was called off…in my mind, I was almost expecting a person calmly coming into the room, and saying..”I have an announcement to make…”, but soon after they came in and everything went off with a hitch.
No such luck.
Then we got to wait again. They were in changing while we were outside waiting to get to be in pictures. I think it might be a tie between wanting to ruin their pictures and being in pictures, so either way I lose. In the meantime, we had a girl who was getting sick and 4 or 50 round trips between our car and the venue, because we were in charge of hauling the flowers around for all the bridesmaids and groomsdudes. They were only like 50 pounds and a few blocks each, but I am pretty weak these days, so I was out of breath and sweaty for most of the day. Finally that was over and we got to go eat.
Unfortunately, we got something to eat, went and woke up my son, and then we had to go to the reception thingy to help out. For some reason, even if you pay a lot for a reception hall, you still have to do work to set it up, if you are married to someone who likes to be helpful to their family. Unfortunately, I have a very helpful wife and she likes to drag my helpfulness along.
Luckily, I found a way to be not helpful, because there were so many other people being that way, and lots of hiding places for me to “pretend to be working”. So I managed to be able to dodge most of that. My feet and phone were having a really hard time staying awake.
The reception was boring and the food was tiny, so of course, my bitterness quotient started to rise. I just wanted to be home laying on the couch and falling asleep to an episode of the Office. Luckily, my daughter wanted to be home too. We almost scored an invite to go home, because of her and I wanted to thank her to the depths of my soul. We all came in one car, and my wife said we should go home and she could get a ride with someone else.
We were almost stepping out the door, when she said, “Well, you guys should just stay a few more minutes and then we will get out of here.” We were so close. We almost got away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling adults.
We ended up staying until the bitter end. Or should I say the Glitter End. Someone had the brilliant idea that we should send off the bride and groom with sparklers and glitter shooters. The sparklers were great, cause they made sparkles, then died out. The glitter, not so much. This added hours and millions of messes to the whole day. The glitter exploded on the street and then decided to be like that stuff that makes Spiderman evil in the third movie. It grabs onto a host and never lets go. The street was littered with it.
Then kids swam in it, and then spread the disease inside. It became impossible to remove, or move and get out of kids hair. Little did I know, that there was a country music dancing festival every Saturday night and they were expecting to move in, a half hour after ours ended. So here were with brooms, mops, and street cleaners, trying to get this glitter out of every nook, cranny and hairpiece. It was a disaster of epic proportions.
I’ll be buying one of these for my worst enemies, by the way.
I don’t know why Disney has forced this “magical” glitter thing on all of us, because that stuff is impossible to clean. In fact, as of the writing of this post, there is still glitter in my hair, in my car and in our house. And my son has some unexploded bombs ready to go off in what I assume will be the most inconvenient time and place. That stuff is evil and glitterally the worst.
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH
Bitter “No More Glitter” Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 
There’s a special corner of Hell reserved for people who use glitter. it right beside telemarketers.
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That reminds me of the Office when Michael has to do a part time job as a telemarketer and calls Stanley and pretends to be from India.
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I love the Office but only until Jim and Pam figure things out.
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I just wish I could watch the Office instead of being in the Office.
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you’re not just bitter you’re cynical and a little evil. That combined with a Scooby Doo reference equals a great post! love it
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I am definitely a little evil. I would love to send some glitter to my old co-workers, many of which I despised. The only problem is that I wouldn’t get to see their faces when they opened it.
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the best wedding I attended (other than my own *) was one for a friend’s son held in a brewery! It was the right length, tone, and when completed, everybody got to swill beer for a few hours. The kids are going strong Not into politics and they support the same baseball team. * unrehearsed and not prodded, she says I should say
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I don’t drink so that wouldn’t appeal to me, but going on a roller coaster, or doing it in Hawaii, now that sounds like a much better time, because you don’t have to think about the wedding and can do other fun things.
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At this stage in life I feel weird going to weddings. Seems like that is something you do when you are really young.
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I just think making someone spend all day, especially on a Saturday, is too much. They need to just chill with the all day thing. Going to a reception is bad enough.
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I despise glitter so much! I told my high school students that one time and then about a week later a student came in and threw glitter all over me and my desk. Needless to say, I wasn’t excited…so, he got a week’s worth of detention! During his stay after school, he got to clean whiteboards, scrap gum off my desks and the cafeteria tables, and clean surfaces in the room. Glitterness is a b*tch…
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I hope you made him clean all the glitter out. That stuff would take him longer than all the gum, whiteboards and cafeteria surfaces combined.
On the other hand, I have thought about sending some of this to my old co-workers….
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On sending it to co-workers…I used to put glitter in those Business Reply envelopes that come on all those credit card offers and other junk mail. Then I would send them back! But I felt like I was supporting glitter producers by doing so and it was still making a mess for me, so now I just send the junk mail back in it’s own envelope.
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You have to at least put something. Maybe shredded up paper or sand?
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I have done shredded paper, but never sand…don’t want someone thinking it’s anthrax…BUT, there is usually something in the unwanted envelopes.
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I guess it is all about how much time and effort you want to put in. I just wish I could put a tiny video camera in there to record it so I could watch them suffer.
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Amen to that! I always imagine someone on the other end opening those envelopes and surprise, “glitter bomb”! Now you too can have something you didn’t want…a lap full of glitter. LOL
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Maybe that is the way I make money. Get someone to make a tiny camera for me, then I sell it to them as part of a glitter bomb.
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Glitter was sent by Satan to test all of us! I once got a piece of glitter in my eye and ended up scratching my eyeball. My eyeball!!! I ended up having to sit in the dark all weekend long to avoid using my eyes. I guess that glitter did me a favor in the end, naps for me!
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I guess it is there to help us get out of things. But seriously, getting your eyeball scratched? That is just plain rude. It is much like the plague where you spread it to the next unsuspecting victim just to take it from you.
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Ha! Oh my! I USED to love weddings.
Now I just pray no one invites me to one. Ha.
What a time you had in the barn! Well, at least your “adventure” made a good blog post. 🙂
I learned years ago…glitter is like Christmas tree pine needles and Easter grass. You think you have it all cleaned up. But, it hides and multiplies…then weeks and months later you find it in the weirdest places! 😀
HUGS and Happy Moan-Day! May all your moaning be good moaning! 🙂
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Yeah, I think there is just a separate little world we don’t know about that has these little annoyances that multiply when we aren’t looking. Though there are humans that multiply annoying kids too. Though at least we have 9 months to know that we need to move away from these people. Too bad houses are so expensive.
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Fantastic post! You have a way with words, that really accentuates the absurdity of everyday ‘normal’ life. If there was a Nobel Prize for what you do . . . then again. You’d probably hang it up – like Groucho said, I’d never want to be in a club that would have me as a member. Love your stuff!
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I think it is just a way of observing the absurdity of weddings in general. I have the same way of finding the absurdity of Disneyland, traffic, etc. and just finally found a place to do it, instead of keeping my observations to myself.
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Glitter is never dirt!
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It is way worse than dirt. You can sometimes wash off dirt, but glitter never goes away.
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When my best friend told me she was getting married, my response was “Oh please don’t ask me to be a bridesmaid!”
True story.
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I feel for you. I can’t even imagine being a bridesmaid, because you have to help well before, during and sometimes after the wedding. Thank you very little.
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The dreaded plastic Easter grass is a close second to glitter on my How-Do-I-Ever-Get-Rid-of-This-Sh*t list.
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Easter Grass is bad, sand is also little specks of bitterness all over.
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Glitter?…obviously overcome with the magic of the day. I learned one thing, if you arrive early and they are setting up never ask “is there anything I can do”…I was quickly placed in charge of the “place card holders” that assigned seating and me not knowing a soul there other than the bride and groom. It was interesting. I never heard from them again.
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That is some great advice. While I rarely volunteer myself, I have a wife that likes to try to make me a better human being, and volunteers me.
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O, that’s too bad. My husband would rather live than volunteer me.
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Your husband has quite the instinct of wanting to live. Smart guy, or at least has good instincts.
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Smart … Plus he is not fond of my bitterness
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How could a husband not be fond of a wife’s bitterness? he needs to check his priorities.
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Just the thought of someone having the thought to use glitter, and the idea that know one slapped the shit out of them for mentioning such an idea, and then people going along with it is too much for me to comprehend. This might just bother me for the rest of the day. I’m afraid you may still be trying to get rid of it the rest of this week… insanity.
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I know. Glitter is the absolute worst. It gets everywhere and I’m guessing the city will come back and fine them for blatant misuse of glitter. It was a nightmare to clean up and I’m guessing the city isn’t too happy with us sweeping it onto the street.
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I’m pretty sure you guys are infamous now. 🙂
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We are more than famous, we are infamous. – Three Amigos
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Sounds awful. And I didn’t see “pizza” mentioned at all, for this venue. I believe that nobody should ever get married unless they elope and have the ceremony performed by a Justice of the Peace in a quick, five-minute legal procedure.
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I know. Talk about disappointment. I had not even a shred of pizza to look forward to. It was a waste of a complete Saturday.
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and they expected you to wear a suit in a barn?……and then clean glitter up? What the heck? I hate weddings too…I think they are a big waste of time and money. Luckily I never get invited to weddings, because I don’t have any friends, and everyone knows I hate weddings, parties, any social gathering. Perhaps you should be grumpier and people would choose not invite you too!
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I am the grumpiest, but my wife drags me to all of these weddings. I told her that no one else is allowed to get married until I am in the retirement home and I lose my memory so I can just pretend I’m somewhere else.
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Yes, or you are soiling your pants, in which case no one will want to invite you!!!
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I maybe need to find a way to do that so I never get invited not only to weddings, but other public events.
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Maybe drooling would be better, and less offensive to yourself!
I think the worst thing is those little icicle things people put on their Christmas trees. I spend the year after Christmas finding those all over the house!!! Most annoying!!!
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Though some people leave their Christmas lights up all year long. I think if I ever put up lights (which I never have during the year), I would leave them up all year. I’m too lazy to take them down.
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