I suppose if you attend enough weddings eventual it will happen, but nothing can prepare you for it. There we were, having a perfectly delightful time, when we found ourselves summoned to the dance floor for the obligatory married couples dance...
DJ: Ok, I need all of you married couples and only married couples on the dance floor now!!
(Actually, in today’s social and moral climate, such bourgeois distinctions seem quaint.)
After a nice slow dance to some Lionel Richie song, the DJ revealed what game was afoot...
DJ: All couples who have been married less than a year, please exit the dance floor!!
Ahh, yes. It was the famous last couple standing game, whereby the couple who has been married the longest receives tepid applause and is then asked to impart words of wisdom to the doe-eyed groom and blushing bride. This is a staple of the American nuptial experience, and usually results in a picture worthy image of some elegant grandparently blue-hairs advising the newlyweds to remember to pray together, or eat breakfast together, and always include bran flakes in the diet.
I look around the dance floor and picked out the likely winners, an adorable elderly pair across the way. Now it was Frank Sinatra smoothly complimenting my wife on the way you look tonight, as the DJ says, thirty years...all couples married less than thirty years, sit down!!
To my shock and horror, there we were, swaying sweetly to Frank’s tender version of this Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields classic, alongside the adorable old couple! A sinking feeling instantly overtook me. There’s no way we are going to win this thing, I reasoned. I mean...look at them!
DJ: Look at this, everyone! It’s down to two couples! Who’s it gonna be??
Then, out of nowhere, my competitive instinct takes over. Bizarrely, I’m suddenly all in on winning this thing, no matter the existential ramifications.
DJ: Thirty five years??!!
Both of us begin to walk off the floor...
The DJ then stops us, turns to the obvious winners and asked them how many years they had survived matrimony. The timid answer tumbled forth from the old man’s lips...Thirty two years..I let loose a mental fistpump right before the tragic news hit me...Pam and I had been married longer (34 years) than anyone in the building.
The next thing I know, there’s a microphone in our faces along with flashing cameras. I hear Pam saying something about how it’s the differences between us that ultimately become our strengths. It was so intelligently stated, so well phrased, it was as if she instinctively knew we were going to be in this position and had planned accordingly. I also felt that maybe it was one of those backhanded compliments...that’s right folks, I’m the exact opposite of this big lug, thank God! Then it was my turn...Never speak ill of your wife in public. The DJ seemed impressed...Wow. That is such wise advice!
No kidding, pal!
So, there you have it. Pam and I have won our first Longest Married Couple Dance-Off.
How, in the name of all that is holy, did this happen? It just can’t possibly be true. It feels like just last month, we were playing house in our cute little two bedroom apartment, where it took 45 minutes to clean the entire place on Saturday mornings, after which we would have brunch while exchanging kisses across the little kitchen table by the balcony. Then Pam would clip coupons out of the Richmond News Leader’s Weekend Edition, while I flipped through the sports page looking for the box scores.
...and now we are dispensing marriage advice in the middle of a dance floor at the Dominion Club.
Wow.
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