by Tessie H

Created on: August 12, 2011   Last Updated: August 15, 2011

Of all life's little events she was forced to endure, Kathy hated weddings probably most of all.  At thirty-two, she had seen her share, blushing brides in $5000 ornate wedding gowns gazing lovingly into the eyes of their beloved grooms, who resembled upright monkeys in their rented tuxes.  Oh, there were the vows, some spoken after the minister, some composed by the couple (one couple had pretty much plagiarized a Journey song), all saying that this love, this commitment that was costing the father of the bride in the five figure range, would last forever and ever.  Most bullshit sentiment anyway.  

So, when her mother called to say that her cousin Michelle was tying the knot in June, Kathy had desperately searched in vain for a prior, earth-shattering former engagement to avoid the circus.  Unfortunately, she was less clever than desperate and her mother saw through the excuses, demanding in no uncertain terms that Kathy attend this wedding. 

"I'm sure Michelle has plenty of single male friends," Kathy's mother had suggested, the obvious implication being that Kathy might be the next bride and make her mother's dream of grandchildren that much closer.

"Michelle is twenty-three," Kathy huffed.  "I've probably BABYSAT her friends." 

But she'd agreed to go, and now here she was, sitting in a church full of stuffy suits, her own dress a purple lacy number that was more suitable for the club than for this extravagant affair.  To her right sat her parents, dressed more like the parents of the bride than two people who were basically there because they would be giving a rather large monetary gift.  Her mother, graying and caked in enough foundation to put any undertaker to shame, glared pointedly at Kathy and Kathy's date sitting to her left.  

Yes, Kathy had brought a date, a co-worker from the bar where she worked a second job as a cocktail waitress.  Bill was a bartender, a shag of stubble outlining his strong jaw, which he had not bothered to shave.  His idea of dressing up for the wedding was a suit jacket from The Gap over a pair of Levi's without holes, but Kathy had to admit that at twenty-six, he had probably not been exposed to the fancy events such as weddings that she had.  Yes, pretty much, she had invited him because she'd known it would infuriate her mother.  

Plus, he'd brought some dope for them to smoke on the ride between the wedding and the reception.   

The

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