Friday, June 29, 2012

Bathroom Monologue: The Wedding Volleys


No one in the chapel knew that the bride wasn’t crying. From afar, with her sniffling and red eyes and breathing hitches, she seemed the most emotional woman in America for a few minutes. This was all actually an allergic reaction to her sister’s vegan breakfast burrito, but they couldn’t tell, especially when she had the veil up.

Her father, who had eaten at the IHOP, did not know, and he soon pulled the antique hanky from his breast pocket to dab at his eyes over his pride and joy.

Now her mother was the extreme type. Extremely strong, for instance, during all the wedding planning and rehearsal dinners and such, with a proud lower lip and steely gaze. Yet she was also extremely sympathetic, and thus extremely compromised when both her only daughter and her only husband teared up in tandem. So soon her dams broke and she became the proper most emotional woman in America for a legitimate stretch of minutes.

The priest, who was both an emotional softy and a cardiac patient, looked away from the red-eyed bride and to the bawling mother, and he himself took a sharp sob for such love in life.

Those were the variables one needed to cover to watch weeping consume the dearly beloved host. The groom’s aunt, who basically raised him, basically fell out of her chair crying for her little man. In consoling her, both of her natural sons, aged 4 and 6, took to crying, perhaps a little more for never getting to see their cousin again, since they didn’t understand that Oregon is actually quite close to Washington.

It was that volatile an arena. You could not discern what set off the ensuing weepers. There was no good reason for the aged cowboy in the back pew to begin squirting tears. No good reason for the bride’s boss and her husband to clutch at each other and murmur about their wedding day and cry in-between unseemly open-mouthed kisses. You had that sort of thing happening, and then of course the groom’s fraternity brothers started crying for suppressed laughter at the hazing they’d put him through later.

It was the single loudest audience for a wedding the church had ever seen. If you paid close attention, which you couldn’t have since if you were there then you lost your shit, you would have noticed the groom was the last person to cry. What finally got to him was a secret he kept for five anniversaries, until his wife confessed about her breakfast burrito fiasco. If she was embarrassed at her tale, she was rankled to learn at what had set him off: he was good at faking it, and did not want to seem left out.

22 comments:

  1. sob I always cry at weddings, this has brought tears to my eyes, for a completely different reason ^___^ Nice one John@

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  2. I like the truth in this. All these people are crying for their own reasons but most think they're crying for the same one. Nicely done.

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  3. I suspect he will have several opportunities for real tears in the near future. Nice one.

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  4. A good cry for all the wrong reasons. Brilliant. And fake it till you make it.
    Adam B @revhappiness

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  5. You can't see, but I'm crying right now. Hayfever induced, I think.

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  6. I thought for sure that, since the bride had an allergic reaction, she was going to fall over dead among the weepers, really giving them something to cry about. But, as Tim mentioned, the groom will have many more reasons for real tears down the road, so he may soon be wishing she had died during the ceremony.....
    Ah, but I don't mean to be so wicked, just can't help myself. :)

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  7. Ah, the psychology of tears. Love it. And, as always, thanks for making me smile!

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  8. I just love the way this built and built, the weepery spreading across the entire venue.

    And yeah, if grooms knew what was in store, they'd be the ones weeping.

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  9. What, Larry, what???? Gee whiz.... JOHN! Loved the story. Reminded me of the vomitorium scene in Stephen King's The Body but it was so much more lovely and less, um, gross!!!!!
    You drew the characters very well and I had no problem seeing any of the leads. Well done!

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  10. Basically, I thought this was extremely good ;-) *wipes away tears*.

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  11. Ha ha! Very amusing and slightly disturbing. Most of us have some tears about something in there ready to come out at an unrelated event, don't we? Perhaps we all need an excuse for a good cry. I know I do! :o)

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  12. Aaah John, I'm bawling too now.

    Simultaneously peeling onions and reading flash fiction isn't really such a good idea, is it? :-)

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  13. The infectiousness of tears :) Love the husband's response :)

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  14. I'd like to take this moment to punch Larry in the eye. *kapow*

    Of course, considering I've been NOT married to the man of my dreams for over a decade, I must say weddings are overrated and I didn't cry at mine either.

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  15. The wedding was so emotional even the cake was in tiers! *budum tish*

    Faking it is never a good idea. It'll catch up with you in the end!

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  16. I have to ask, what else was he faking?

    And to think an allergy could send a whole wedding party into tears.

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  17. This made me sob with laughter! But I'm afraid that I may be one of the fooled ones if attending such wedding...

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  18. Tears spread like a crucible of collective hysteria.. except the groom..who remains the biggest fake in the room.. brilliant John.. and yet another very different tone and voice from you..masterful and original.

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  19. I love the story, but question the title. I think it should have been titled "The Dangers of Vegan Burritos". :)

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  20. Aw this was a sweetly funny story! Chain-reaction weeping afflicting much like chain-reaction yawning. Could happen!

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  21. Hilarious, and so effing typical of a wedding.

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  22. It seems ridiculous, and yet it happens all of the time - contagious emotion. Now what if the groom had gone to wipe her tears, poked her in the eye by accident, she belted him one because earlier he'd innocently told her the dress resembled his grandmother's, the bride's sister decks him for being a brute, and the wedding erupts into a brawl...oh, wait. That's an episode of Bridezillas isn't it. Never mind. Great story John, I enjoyed it!

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