kept woman

I see you’ve posted a picture of your French tip manicure and engagement ring on Facebook. I’m happy for you; you’ve been waiting eight years for the opportunity to “marry your best friend.” But I need you to know that there is absolutely no way I can attend your wedding. I will give you a polite excuse and you need to accept it, no questions asked. It is the only way to save our friendship. Please allow me to illustrate with this hypothetical but extremely realistic scenario.
May 14, 2020: Your official engagement announcement will hit every one of your social media channels. Two hours in and I’m already tired of hearing about this event.
June 20, 2020 – You will host an engagement party. I immediately distrust most of your relatives because they think your idea to have a wedding in a dilapidated horse barn is a great one. It is not.
July 4, 2020 – You will send me the links to 23 photography websites because you need help picking a wedding photographer. I will look at two sites and tell you I liked the first one best.
September 7, 2020 – Your Save the Date card arrives. I mentally calculate how much money you spent on it and wonder why you are sending a pre-invitation invitation. On the plus side, I see that the wedding will be in our hometown, not his. If I’m invited to a wedding which requires the purchase of a plane ticket it implies that you are having a destination wedding. Moose Jaw is not a destination.
October 31, 2020 – You will call about your wedding dress while I’m trying to hand out Halloween candy to the neighbourhood wallet drainers. You’re having a tough time finding the one you saw Jenny McCarthy wearing in Us Weekly .three years ago. You’re also having a hard time finding a dress that will suit nine bridesmaids with completely different body types. Why you have chosen to dress so many adult women in identical outfits is beyond me.
November 5, 2020 – Good grief. Your wedding website has launched.

December 12, 2020 – You will send the link to your wedding registry. The timing couldn’t be better with Christmas shopping in full swing. Engagement gifts, bridal shower gifts, wedding gifts – you are raking it in. I will buy you a recipe book that I’m quite sure I’ve seen at your place because: fuck you. You should have asked yourself what else I might have going on in my life. I’ve been out of work for six weeks and just found out I need new winter tires.
January 24, 2021 – You will be in the throes of selecting a ring bearer and flower girl; your sisters will be fighting over this. Sarah thinks the twins should do it; Tina knows the twins are cheese logs incapable of performing even the simplest of tasks. You will also be designing wedding invitations that have a bunch of shit on them that makes them impossible to recycle.
February 16, 2021 – You are booking hair and makeup people and deciding on wedding favours. I’m not in the wedding party so I wonder why you’re calling me about this. Then I will realize that you want me to make the wedding favours. I have now talked to you more in the past nine months then I have for the past five years.
March 19, 2021 – Your wedding invitation will arrive. The surprise sequins you tucked into the envelope are now all over my kitchen.
March 27, 2021 – You will invite me to a wedding cake tasting. Finally an activity I’m interested in! You will ignore my advice and the cake you commission will be a shitty, jam-filled monstrosity covered in fondant that people will scrape off and leave on their plates. Worse yet, you’ve picked a fruit cake. No one likes fruit cake. Give the people what they want: gumdrop cake. Solid enough to stack and layer, candy-filled enough to be vicious delicious. Coat that bad boy with buttercream and you’re good to go.
April 8, 2021 – You are sending your DJ curated playlists. You invite people to submit song requests. Break Up With Him .and I Hate Everything About You .top my list.
May 29, 2021 – Your bridal shower. There will be terrible games, gushing women, and a toilet paper wedding gown. We will have to watch you open gifts for over an hour. It is a dry event, so I won’t be able to drink the pain away.
June 30, 2021 – You will text me pictures from your trial hair and makeup appointments. I won’t be able to recognize anyone in the photos including you.
July 10, 2021 – I will attend your bachelorette party. We all have to wear something purple because it’s your favourite colour. I will leave at 10:30 pm when a round of Blow Job shots arrives in plastic penis glasses. I will tell you that my cat has just been admitted at the emergency vet clinic.
July 12, 2021 – You will ask your friends to call guests that haven’t rsvp’d so you can have a final guest number. I will tell you I’d love to help but unfortunately, my cat still requires round-the-clock care.
July 30, 2021 – You are stressed about the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but I tell you not to worry, everything will be fine. This optimism rests on the knowledge that in about 24 hours this nightmare will be over.

July 31, 2021, 11:00 am – Your wedding day. I’m dressed, covered in sunscreen, and begin the two-hour drive to your event location.
1:00 pm – I arrive in the quaint town that we grew up in. The new artisanal cheese shop is closed because the owner opens by appointment only, and the only café in town is shut down because the university students have gone home for the summer. There is nothing for your out-of-town guests to do during their stay.
1:15 pm – It is hotter than hell. There is no parking near the church so your guests are parked all over the village, trudging to the chapel in their uncomfortable shoes. I have grown a sweat moustache.
1:30 pm – People are jockeying for positions in the tiny pews of the tiny church. It’s like a Tokyo subway at rush hour.
1:35 pm – I scan your wedding program and wonder why you felt the need to put a bunch of obvious stuff in print, but then realize it makes a decent fanning device and feel grateful that you wasted your money on it. This church is officially the hottest place on the planet.
1:45 pm – Your Uncle Richard and Aunt Doris have managed to squeeze in next to me. I can’t breathe, I can no longer feel my arms.
2:00 pm – The ceremony starts. You will look amazing, by the way. Your cousin will perform. Travis thinks he has composed the perfect song to commemorate the occasion, but he’s wrong. He is the sort of person that refers to sex as making love, so what did you expect?
3:00 pm – The ceremony is done. I look at the program and see that the reception starts at 6:30 pm. You will be taking photos for 3.5 hours. We will have to make small talk with your most boring friends, Brad and Stephanie, for three fucking hours. They’re trying to have a baby at age 47 and 44 respectively. I hate you.
3:15 pm – I throw rice at your face as you exit the church.
3:30 pm – Your guests start making their way to a tent beside the church hall. I run into your ex-boyfriend from high school. He’s now British or trying to be British? I am trapped in conversation for 45 minutes.
4:15 pm – A six-year-old spills her juice on me and now I’m sticky.
4:30 pm – I meet your co-worker Paul. I’m not particularly keen on learning everything there is to know about World of Warcraft even if he did bring enough Tic Tacs for everyone at the table.
4:45 pm – The finger foods you carefully selected are wilting and I just saw your nephew pick his nose and then reach for a stuffed mushroom. This is bogus. I’m so hungry.
5:30 pm – Please kill me.

6:00 pm – We are granted access to the church hall for the reception. We look at seating charts, we find our tables. Good news: Paul and his Tic Tacs will be sitting next to me.
7:00 pm – You arrive for the reception half an hour late. Your guests erupt into applause when the emcee announces your entrance. Good for you, we clap. You finally decided to show up.
7:15 pm – There is a pre-meal introductory speech. We will hear how cute you were in your wedding dress as the wedding party went through the drive-thru at McDonald’s. I will lose my goddamned mind. First off: we were all starving here in this godforsaken hellhole while you stuffed your faces with delicious french fries. And second: where exactly is that McDonald’s?
7:30 pm – We will be served the shittiest meal we will eat until the next wedding we have to attend. The chicken will be dry, the food will be cold. Your Uncle Richard will offer to finish my salad for me. Your guests won’t remember a thing about the meal, but I can guarantee we will all remember your drunk Aunt Sheila. Her toast was… well, no one saw that genital herpes joke coming.
7:45 pm – Oh my God, Paul. No, I do not want to hear more about the great desert fortress of Ahn’Qiraj.
7:55 pm – I will begin a conversation with a man at our table who fronts an indie band. He plays the theremin and hurdy-gurdy. I’m assuming that his moustache is supposed to be ironic. He will ask if I want to drop acid in the bathroom later. I do not.
8:15 pm – Your dad has created a video tribute. It starts with your birth in 1974.
9:20 pm – After dinner, we will have to watch people dancing to NSYNC in their fancy clothes. There will be a flash mob. There will be the pain of watching this unfold.
9:45 pm – You will toss your flowers to a crowd of women who are confused about what year it is, and your husband will peel a garter belt from your thigh while you force us to watch. I’d rather watch Paul pick something out of his teeth, which is exactly what he is doing right now.
10:00 pm – Why should I have to go looking for Uncle Richard? Did you even check the bathroom? Because Aunt Doris told me he goes there sometimes to rest when he’s had too many pints.
10:30 pm – I can finally make a break for it. There is the drive back to the city after all. No, I do not want to take that Pinterest-inspired table ornament home. Please don’t make me say the words to your face.
August 1, 2021 – I am supposed to attend your post-wedding brunch and gift opening bonanza, but I will text at the last minute to say that my cat has relapsed.
November 6, 2021 – You will host a pre-holiday soirée which is really a wedding video viewing party. It will be the last time we see each other because I literally can’t stand the sight of you, your husband, or Uncle Richard anymore. Farewell, old friend. Please tell Paul I’m not interested in joining his World of Warcraft Meetup group.
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Hilarious! Amen.
The recipe book is a great gift idea! I like fruit cake. “Uncle” Richard ?
I’m not gunna mince my words here, Uncle Richard: I need you to stop eating fruit cake. It brings us all down.
?
Brilliant and hilarious. Your parents eloped so maybe you have inherited the gene that is cynical about marriages that begin with a floofy theatrical production consisting of many, many acts.
And, hey! You’ve pulled that “my cat is desperately sick” on your own mother!!
But THOSE cats WERE sick. My current cat is a 14 pound specimen of good health. Unless you plan to renew your vows.
Priceless as always…sweat stache (snort)
God I love Tic Tacs
Your kindred spirit
Yaaaaasssss!
*high-fives you back*
I say this as someone who is allergic to festivities of all kinds: You are my god.
Bless you, my child. ?
Well, I have to say I love this 🙂
Well, you didn’t HAVE to say it, but I’m glad you did.
I so needed this right now. Just got off the phone with my bank because they decided to take out the $350 fraud amt they previously gave back to me. I hate banks, but I love you!
This is exactly why I’d never marry a bank.
Your cat needs to relapse more frequently!
Pet emergencies – real or imagined – are a very good excuse for all manner of terrible social situations. Highly recommend, 10/10.
HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! I haven’t laughed that hard in months!!! (Well, since your last blog post, actually). Everything about this scenario is my personal hell, which is why I don’t attend weddings, and why my husband and I chose to forgo a ridiculous, drawn-out, money-wasting shit show, and we got married at a justice of the peace. We also like our friends, and we wanted to keep them. ??
My parents taught us from a very early age that social conventions need not be followed. Weddings? Not necessary. Children? Only if you want them. Careers? Do what ever you want. Pants? Entirely optional.
What’s wrong with fruit cake? A lot of my friends are fruit cakes.
MIKE NO
NO MIKE
HAHAHA!! this is the BEST! you need to be writing a column or book, “What People are Really Thinking”
I think I should just keep the book to: What Movita is Really Thinking ?
This is so painfully accurate that I almost cannot laugh. The only thing I want to know is whether this is a dry wedding, but I’m guessing that church hall is code for that.
Weddings are the worst.