Deborah Kimmett
Wit..Wisdom..Wonderful!!
"She made 100 psychiatrists laugh."
Christina Raposa, Mental Health,
Scarborough Hospital
ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID NEVER A BRIDE
July 22, 2010
ALWAYS A BRIDE NEVER A BRIDESMAID
What do you call twenty-eight women sitting in the living room spreading melted Brie over rice crackers, pounding back the cocktails and yapping like crows sitting on a fence? If you said Tuesday night book club night you’d be close. In fact this was a bridal shower, for my cousin Francine’s daughter, Helen.
It’s been a custom for decades now to shower new brides- to-be with things that will help them set up a household but brides today have either lived on their own and collected their trousseau or in Helen’s case been down the alter more than once. That being said, this time around Helen has had a household shower, a teacup shower and then the one I was invited to, boudoir shower. Boudoir shower is French for being registered on the Sexy-R-us web site. Since she’s on her third marriage I think Helen needs a frequent flyer card for a divorce lawyer, not another pair of chocolate under-pants.
I don’t like boudoir showers. I won’t go to Candle parties because I don’t like people knowing what scent I use so I have no interest in opening paraphernalia for intimate relations. I wasn’t a complete party pooper. I bought her an over the bra that lifted and separated which Helen would likely be doing soon.
Amidst the some hot pot stickers and mini quiche I thought about how showers have changed. As a young woman I remember the speech I gave to my mother:
“If you ever give me a bridal shower I will boycott it.” I hated the crustless sandwiches and that brides had to sit in the wing-backed chair with the streamers of pink above over their heads while somebody made a hat out of a paper plate and bows. Now everybody drinks. But we didn’t have hooch back then because broads didn’t booze it up in front of their mothers. That and Auntie Vera had just gotten back from the Betty Ford Centre so there was a punch bowl of mocktails; two cans of pineapple and an anti-buse chaser.
When I got married I wasn’t registered anywhere. I wouldn’t dare dictate what gifts should be given. My aunts gave me family recipes and a nice piece of Pyrex and some cookie sheets. I know brides today don’t want cupboards full of junk but getting a horrible gift or two is part of the fun. You won’t remember perfect flatware choices, but a pink lady toilet paper cover is a great story waiting to be told. A story like that will keep you company when you’re old and in the nursing home.
Men often say some women play games and that statement is no truer than at a bridal shower. There are two kinds of people. People who like to play shower games. And the rest of us. There is always some game playing harpie who is screaming at everyone else, “Stop being party poopers. This IS fun.”
It isn’t fun. There is nothing fun about seeing how fast you can make pot scrubber into a doll. I don’t think pot scrubbers need faces. It’s not fun having to see how many clothespins you can get off a clothesline with one hand or having a hotdog tied around your waist to see if you can get it into a Coke Bottle.
For awhile the feminists tried to boycott the games. They wanted to act like men and hire a stripper. But believe me it isn’t fun having a guy called Long Dong Silver dancing in front of you to Donna Summers’ Love to Love You Baby on a boom box. You don’t know where to put your eyes and its never pretty when you’re mother starts disinfecting the leather couch.
I did find one shower in thirty years quite fun. We were asked to dress up in our ugliest bridesmaid dress. I remember Helen had to borrow one of mine because she had never been asked to stand up for anyone.
Always a bride never a bridesmaid apparently.
At that shower Auntie Vera was the hit of the afternoon. She wore her honeymoon negligee with Malabar fur slippers. When we whistled at her like construction workers she quipped,
“ I was pure as the driven snow when I got married. Why I walked down that church aisle, I said a few vows and that night I was supposed to be hot as a firecracker. But it was no 1st of July I’ll tell you that. More like April fools.”
No matter how the games and customs have changed the free advice hasn’t. Every family shower we offer the bride-to-be words of wisdom on how to stay married. Except for a couple of us, most people are still married in my family because that vow ‘ till death do us part’ isn’t an idle threat, it’s a promise.
These are a few samples of the bon mots flowing on Helen’s special day.
“Never let the sun go down on your wrath.”
“Never believe a man when he says we’ll just lie down and talk.”
Aunt Vera who had been back drinking since 2002, took the prize for the most maudlin words of the day,
“ Appreciate your man while he’s alive because before you know it, you’ll be old and he’ll be dead and you’ll be eating beef jerky from a bag wishing you had someone to yell at.”
The afternoon drew to a close I decided to take Auntie Vera home with me. Last time she went back to the nursing home in that condition she almost got kicked out for feeling up an orderly.
I kissed Helen good-bye.
“ Maybe third time’s a charm, ” I said.
And Vera slurred, “ Yeah, maybe the horns in his head will match the holes in yours,” but Helen had that far-off look all brides to be have, like they’re soldiers going back to Afghanistan for a third tour of duty.
When I got home I tucked Vera under the blanket on the couch. I sat munching leftover crust-less egg salad sandwiches and realized that the main thing that has changed about bridal showers is me. I actually like them. Not because of the gifts or the party games, or even because I believe in happily ever after but because, except for funerals, it’s the only time I get to see my relatives.
At that moment Auntie Vera exhaled a loud snore followed by a long period of silence. Thoughts like, Oh my God what if she is dead? I’ll need a new outfit. I hope the relatives will fly up from the States. After about ,thirty seconds of mind chatter she inhaled once again. And the rumbling snores drowned out the sound of a train heading westbound.
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I loved your article. I love them all. David and I are busy Aug. 7 and 8 so we will miss your writing workshop. I liked your writing workshop very much. Thank you.
I wish you were not leaving the island however I wish you only good things. I enjoy your intelligence, wit,smarts and beauty.
Sharen English.