They Were, Otherwise, Engaged At The Time

“Do we have anything for this weekend?” I asked May.

“We need to go and eat free food with people that actually like us,” she replied.

“Dear lord,” I lamented, “what is this world coming to?”

May, Gracie, and I recently attended the merry occasion of the engagement party for May’s cousin, Nicholas, and his long-time girlfriend, Victoria.

Sidebar: I always felt that you really start to “feel” old when you either have kids or are around them as they grow. Nicholas is a great example, as when May and I first started dating he was just a kid in high school, and now here he was – about to take the big step of joint checkbooks, shared mortgages, and arguments over the thermostat. [sniff] They grow up so fast!

We arrived at the restaurant on a lovely Sunday early afternoon; the whole place had been reserved for the party, as there were about 165 people in attendance. And remember, this was just for the engagement party. When the actual wedding rolls around, who knows? We might be knocking on the door of the infamous Natalie/Jack wedding of 1997 which was, as I understand, topping 400 people. A far cry from the 20 or so folks May and I had at our wedding, including one of her coworkers who came over from the post office across the street during his lunch break.

May and I roll with our own style, thank you very much.

Speaking of style, I asked May if she thought I could get away with a pair of clean, non-ripped jeans, and maybe a tasteful D&D graphic tee. Her response was a look that could best be summed up as “no.” So, fine, I dug out my one pair of nice slacks and a decent button-down short sleeve shirt that, somehow, still fit me even though I got it like 20 years ago. We gathered up Gracie, Cece, and our lovely engagement party gift and were off.

May was laughing that she really was turning into her aunts, as instead of a flowery card from the Hallmark Signature Collection, we were just putting a check in an addressed envelope.

“Well,” I said, “we could always go one step beyond and just give them their gift as a series of used greenbacks in an unmarked envelope slid underneath the door to the men’s room.”

May paused. “That’s …oddly specific.”

“I have lived a full and rich life.”

Money matters aside, we arrived and were delighted to see that we were seated at the same table as Nyan, my brother-in-law, his wife Helena, and their daughter, Emma. Their youngest, Leon, was not present (much to May’s disappointment), but apparently he was teething and making more whining sounds than me when May tells me that the yard needs work.

We mingled a bit with the other family members, gave our congratulations to the engagement couple, and then I sat down and tried to figure out where I needed to sit to avoid the sun – without my trusty baseball cap or fedora, my balding head was mercilessly exposed to the skylight above our table. For now, the sunlight was not a danger, but having passed 3rd grade science class, I was aware that over the course of the day the sunlight would be creeping on to my helpless scalp like a slow creeping terror, much like the creature of the same name from the classic Mystery Science 3000 episode. But, such are the dangers I brave to support the family.

Fortunately the time at the table was filled with a lively and healthy debate. No, nothing about sports, politics, or the musical legacy of Neil Diamond, but rather, it was a much more down-to-earth matter of when we were allowed to go up for food. Each table had a number assigned to it, so I was thinking that this meant that they would call the tables up in that order for the buffet. May, however, thought that it was just a first-come, first-serve approach: you could just go up when you wanted. As there were, unfortunately, no handy instructions at the table, it took us some time to confirm that May was right.

Naturally, by the time we figured this out, most of the tables were either already eating or in long lines. The good news was that there were two separate buffet serving tables, so we grabbed the one with the shorter line. The bad news was that right as we got to the front of the line, they ran out of plates.

Well, of course!

So, we had to wait an extra 5-10 minutes before we could eat.

At least they were serving up a delightful brunch buffet, and Gracie surprised me by having the server actually get out into a dump truck, back it up, and drop a pile of penne alla vodka on her plate. She then surprised me further when she actually ate it all.

I, on the other hand, went with the diversification strategy, getting a little bit from almost every option. True, I did load up on food, as well, but I was taking my cue from the lions of the savanna (not the city in Georgia, the place in Africa) where they have to eat as much as they can in one sitting because they never know when their next meal will be. And if upper middle class Long Island isn’t comparable to the African savanna, then damn it, I don’t know what is.

A nice touch on each table was that they had a table sign with the table number along with a picture of both Nicholas and Victoria at different ages. It took me a few moments (probably longer than it should have, honestly) to realize as I glanced around at the photos on the other tables, that their photos were of the same age as the table number. So, at our table 4, those were photos of them from when they were 4 years old.

Nifty!

Nicholas and Victoria, themselves, barely got time to eat, I think. Every time I turned around they were working the crowd like pros, saying hi to everyone, joking around, and making sure everyone else was having a wonderful time. Nicholas, in particular, wound up (apparently) standing guard over the dessert table to both greet folks as they passed by and to ensure proper treat delivery protocol was being adhered to.

That kind of dedication deserves respect, my friends.

And a good thing, too, because the servers at the dessert table tried to pull a fast one on me.

I had my eyes solely on the magnificent chocolate cake. Oh, there were other offerings, like cookies, eclairs, and a variety of smaller baked goods. But as the kids from the immortal ballad “Seven” from They Might Be Giants had chanted: “We want cake! Where’s our cake?!”

I watched as the servers dropped generous piece of cake after generous piece of cake on people’s plates.

And then.

When it was my turn?

They cut a generous piece of cake, and put it on a plate.

And then CUT IT IN HALF.

And offered ONE OF THE HALVES to me.

My eyes went pure black like a lightless, depleted gold mine 2000 ft. below sea level. My voice dropped 17 octaves into the Mariana Trench, and when I spoke, the room echoed with the psychic echoes of a thousand thousand restless seven-year-olds at a birthday party, “No thank you; I would like a piece of cake like the one you gave the last guy, please.”

And hey, these folks were professionals, so they happily complied, and I was all sunshine and rainbows again. And the cake was delicious, so no regrets.

It was a great time, to be sure, and fortunately Nicholas and Victoria’s actual wedding date isn’t until next year, so plenty of time to work off the weight from that generous piece of cake.