Funny Guy Friday… Something old, something new...

     Funny Guy Friday is written each week by my husband Mark.  So, I married a funny guy.
     My nephew is getting married this weekend. Weddings are always great events in our family. We operate on the theories that bigger is better and the more the merrier. Picture the opening scene from the Godfather movie but without anybody ordering a hit.
     This coming weekend has me thinking about family weddings and of our own wedding more than twenty years ago. The nephew that is getting married was our ring bearer. I remember him coming down the aisle in his little tux, with the sweetest crew cut.  He and his younger brother were fighting over who was going to dance with our flower girl, who happened to be their cousin. Kind of cute, in a creepy, yucky, fall-in-love-with-your-cousin kind of way.
     That same flower girl is expecting her first child in the next few weeks. I am happy to report that she married a young man with whom she shares no DNA.
     I am the youngest of six kids and the last to have gotten married in our family. Cheryl was the middle of five kids and the first to have gotten married in her family. I remember meeting with her mom to go over the guest list. The place where we held our reception only held 220 people. That may seem like a lot of people for a wedding but if we had only invited my immediate family, we would have already had more than forty people. That did not include aunts, uncles, cousins or friends. We knew space was going to be tight.
    Cheryl's mother asked what the age cut off was for the wedding and I replied birth to twenty, the age of my oldest niece. Some of my fondest memories as a kid were of family weddings. My future mother-in-law was concerned because she had sung at several weddings and there had been times when kids had misbehaved and ruined weddings.
     Oh yeah, well I have been to weddings where singers have misbehaved and they are the ones that ruined weddings…...plus I trust my brothers and sisters to take their kids out if they misbehave. Now that she has grandkids of her own, she wouldn't dream of leaving them out.
     We invited well over 220 people (kids included) with the knowledge that there would be several people who would not be able to come. In my opinion, the guests that don't come but still send a gift are the best guests of all. When all was said and done, we were at our maximum capacity of 220… and then my aunt showed up from Colorado with two of her grandchildren. That was 222, and that would have put us two over the Fire Marshall's limit.    
     I told my dad that he had to tell his sister, my Aunt Josie, that her grandkids were not going to be able to come to the reception. He assured me that he would take care of it. Imagine my shock when Aunt Josie and the grandkids showed up at the reception. So, there I was, twenty-eight years old, on my wedding day, and I had to tell my dad to "man-up" and get rid of those two. He told me, in no uncertain terms, to find two more chairs.
     There was no way I was going to take orders on my wedding day, even if they were from my dad. It was on that day that I decided that I would adopt a new policy when it came to taking orders that I did not want to take. Yes, it was on that day that my life changed in many ways. I decided that I was going to be the one in control. From that day forward, whenever someone gave me an order to do something that I did not want to do……I'd get Cheryl to do it!
     Now my nephew has his own personal assistant, er, uh wife, that will be welcomed into the family. She is a beautiful girl who always seems to be upbeat. She was a cheerleader in college and I think her smile is tattooed on her face. Her positive personality is nice but what I like best about her is that she can run and she can catch. She will definitely be a number one draft pick in the family Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl.
     Obviously, this is not the first niece or nephew to get married. Three years ago, we went to Orlando, Florida for another family wedding. The wedding was great but the real excitement was in the local hospital. Our youngest complained of severe stomach pains. Not unusual for a five year old but what was unusual was the fact that he was moaning and groaning in his sleep. Fearing a burst appendix, we rushed him to the emergency room.  After a thorough exam, much to my chagrin, the doctor advised he needed an enema. We refer this as the thousand dollar poop! Quite an expensive move, if you catch my drift.
     The most notorious family wedding story really did not involve a wedding at all but a long ago bachelor party. I will preface this story by pointing out that I come from a long line of tea totalers. To this day, I drink beer that tastes like anything but beer. My favorite beer is closer to a wine cooler than a beer. But wine coolers are for women. Fruity beers are for, are for…...well at least it isn't a wine cooler.
     Anyway, my brother was getting married on a Saturday and his buddies planned his bachelor party for Friday night…….mistake number one.
     We ended up at a local bar and they ordered shots of whiskey…….mistake number two.
At the time, I was only sixteen years old and was not a big whiskey drinker…..and I don't think they make a fruity whiskey…... so after the first one, I passed the next two onto my brother, Paul…….mistake number three. You remember Paul… the favorite son, the free spirit, the future Lutheran minister, yeah that Paul.
     As the night progressed, my father and brother-in-law Butch ended up at the bar. Butch looks like every other Butch that you have ever met……big and "Herman Munster" strong. Well, somehow Paul ended up getting beat up in the men's room and the next thing you know, Butch was carrying him out of the bar.
    Okay, okay, okay…..Paul did not get beat up; he passed out in the men's room. You see the only thing that my brothers and I did less than drink was fight. We were very adept at talking our way out of trouble. But getting beat up sounds so much tougher than passing out. Anyway, Paul met his match in that bathroom floor.  My dad and Butch took him home.
     Upon their arrival, they found my brother, the groom, passed out on the front yard……mistake number, number, number, I am losing count, suffice it is to say, there were a lot of mistakes made that night.
     You see, my brother's friends were cowards and they refused to knock on the front door and incur the wrath of my mother. My mother is five foot nothing, but tough as nails. Do you remember the Flintstones when Fred would yell and the roof of the house would rise up above the rest of the house? That was our house when my mom blew up.
     If you are paying attention, you may have noticed that my brothers had left the bar, my father had left the bar, my brother-in-law had left the bar and my brother's friends had left the bar. Let's see, who was left at the bar? That's right... that would have been me.
    It was about 1 a.m. and the waitress was concerned about who was going to pay the very hefty bill. She approached me and asked me if I had $210. I told her that I had half of that…..I had $10. She then asked me if I had any ID. Mind you, she had just hours earlier served me whiskey. I confidently told her that I had good news and bad news. The good news was that I did have ID; the bad news was that it said that I was only sixteen.
     She was panicky so I assured her that someone had to come back and pick me up. Unfortunately, that person was my dad. My poor dad arrived near the end of the night, watched as one son got carried out of the bar, had to pick up another son off of the front yard, and then had to pick up another son who was left all by his sixteen year old self. That was all bad, but the worst thing for my dad was that he got stuck with the $210 bill…..Ouch, tough night!
     As we drove home, I was told that I had to walk in the house without any help because my mother was going to flip if I had to be carried into the house. No problem. I walked in and took out my contact lenses and went straight to a cot and fell face first directly down onto the carpet that was right next to the cot. Suffice to say, it was a rough night.
     The wedding was anticlimactic. The bride was cheerful and happy right up until she saw the groom. Let's just say the story gets better the farther you get away from the event.      
     So, now my twenty-three nieces and nephews are getting married and having kids. My mother already has seventeen great-grandkids. I am sure that we will be getting plenty of invitations to weddings in the coming years. I look forward to each and every one. In fact, I can't wait until one of my nephews invites me to his wedding and I show up with two uninvited grandkids of my own. I am sure that they will not be turned away and my nephew's new bride will do what all new brides do when our family shows up…..she will find two more chairs.