Friday, July 27, 2007

Registry Items

Due to the great generosity of you, The Readers, I am, as you are well aware, now the proud owner of many canisters and a sewing machine and a margarita pitcher, all of which will make for a highly interesting, potentially illegal party at some point in the near future.

Josh The Pilot and I, as instructed by a person wearing an official Target polo shirt and holding a raygun, registered for twice as many items as there people were on our guest list. We attempted to cover only what we absolutely needed to scratch out a daily existence, and word proceeded to circulate forth that we also wished to register for an off-shore banking account.

Several of our guests bestowed upon us gift cards and checks, many--especially when their proportion to the givers' incomes was taken into consideration--that made us bury our heads in our hands and feel like total and complete losers for ever whining about the price of high-speed internet access.

So I went to my matron of honor, who also serves as my accountant, and twisted my hands together and asked her what on Earth I could write in a thank-you note in the face of such tax free, England manor-style generosity.

She stared at me a second, then said, "You say, 'THANK YOU FOR THE MONEY' and then you go to the bank."

Julie The NephewsMama was an excellent matron of honor.

I was told to expect at least one registry-departure present that would sit next to me on my desk, daring me to thank somebody for it. One friend received a creamer shaped like a cow that vomited milk; another, an economy-size basket of kumquats. I'll refrain from naming my own Very Special Present out of gracious respect for the giver, who is still alive and may yet be of some use to us, but the Most Unexpected And Yet Awesome Wedding Present Award goes to Flip and his heterosexual life partner, Perpetually Angry Sam.

Flip and Perpetually Angry Sam rolled up on the wedding with a gift bag containing four taper candles. Also? Gin.

"This is top shelf," Country The Brother-In-Law said just before I departed for the honeymoon. Given that Country had just risen to admire my gin from the kitchen table, where he had been mashing Play-Doh with a merely semi-angry three year old for the better part of an hour, this was quite possibly the highlight of any wedding he had ever been involved with, including his own.

I have been on a hugging basis with Flip and Perpetually Angry Sam for well on a decade, and they know better than to trust me with fire-related products and a liquid with a very high alcohol content. But I realized, as I peered into the bag containing my top-shelf martini basis, that perhaps this was their way of granting my adulthood. Our adulthood. The bag was a real live gift bag, without a trace of biodegradable plastic or Walgreen's logo in sight.

"See," Sam said in the hotel lobby the next morning when Josh The Pilot and I ran into him, Flip, and four other wedding guests in the World's Most Determinedly Non-Uncomfortable Meeting, "I looked all over for candles that would fit in the neck of the bottle, so you can use it as a holder later on when the gin is gone."

Oh, Sam. The first credit card bills from the honeymoon came in yesterday. The gin is already gone.

straight, neither shaken nor stirred at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did anybody buy you the dolphin toilet-lid thingy?

Anonymous said...

Mike:

I was thinking the exact same thing. I think we would have heard about it, for sure.

The cards are great. When we got married, I did the traditional day-after counting, wrote my thank-yous, and we went off on our honeymoon. I got home and realized - to my chagrin and embarrassment - that there were still cards left in the box. See, our box was shaped like a wedding cake, and the cards got wedged in the smallest, top-most tier.

But it was, however, like a second wedding.

Congrats to you both again - it looks like you had an awesome wedding.

Josh The Pilot said...

Anyone think I have a future as a booze bottle model? I've been told I have good-looking hands.

Jill said...

My worst wedding gift: 3 sets of twin sheets. What in the world would my husband and I do with twin sheets? We didn't decide to go back to the 1950's and have his and hers mathching twin beds, nor did we even own a twin bed. Awesome.

MaNiC MoMMy™ said...

Just cruised through your blog--happy belated wedding! Looks like it was fun. I'm heading into my FIFTEENTH year of marriage--GOd, that makes me sound SOOOO old, but I'm not, REALLY!!!

Found you from Karyn!

Have fun being a Mrs.!

Anonymous said...

Josh-
But where's the ring?? I didn't realize it was you. Nice hands, just need to have the ring on display.

My husband is on his 8th ring(in four years). We buy the cheap ones cause he plays with it, and invariably loses it. He lost the first one AT the reception. It's a good thing I love (and TRUST) this man. :)

Glad to hear things are going well.

Anonymous said...

JTP, I would be very worried if you became a booze bottle model. For starters, you don't look anything like a booze bottle! ;)
Love ya, bro!

Anonymous said...

Welcome to Manic Mom! Glad you found us and hope you stick around the Tasting Room for a while :)

Anonymous said...

"But I realized, as I peered into the bag containing my top-shelf martini basis, that perhaps this was their way of granting my adulthood. Our adulthood."

Blonde.
James Blonde ;-)

I have seen that bottle in the pages of the Wallpaper magazine, so I do realize it is quite the posh beverage... although I have never understood why the bottle looks like it was given to you by a pharmacist! is it perhaps so you can store it in the bathroom medicine cabinet without raising suspicions??

How I would love to send you both a nice case of Tequila Cazadores, which BTW would be truly fitting, since "Cazadores" means literally "Hunters".

Cheers.

Toni said...

When I wrote the thank-you notes for the checks and gift cards, I usually tried to mention what we might spend the money on. That gave me something to write about other than "thanks for the cash!"

Anonymous said...

Upon further review, those are actually the hands of Country The Brother-In-Law. My Kiawah T-shirt is a give away. I hadn't left the house that day so I didn't put my wedding ring on. Thanks for all the compliments (even if intended for someone else).

Josh The Pilot said...

My apologies, Britton! I didn't look close enough so I really thought that was my Bengals t-shirt and figured it was me. There were so many pictures taken over the wedding weekend I couldn't remember if one had been taken of me and the bottle.
So everybody, do you think Country my brother-in-law-in-law is a good gin bottle model?

Anonymous said...

Very NICE Country! You should pursue this full time. Then when you're rich and famous, you can have a break down and start to live all 'Grey Gardens'....

Come to think of it, nevermind.

(Maybe all Grey Goose instead)

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