I’d Rather Get Married [Friday Thoughts w/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. To the untrained eye, I’m eating an orange. But to the eye that has brains, I’m making a point about marriage. For you see, marriage is a lot like an orange. First, you have the skin. Then the sweet, sweet innards. It’s Friday, September 20th, Two Thousand and Nineteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 68˚ & Pantone 549 and somewhere, somebody has cold feet. That’s because the foot of the bed is next to the air conditioner. Somewhere else, somebody else has butterflies in their stomach. That’s because they are disgusting foragers that find butterflies to be high in protein. Somewhere else, somebody else is on pins and needles. I can’t explain why this is true. Some people just like that shit, I guess. I also have some things on my mind.

– I actually didn’t write most of this on Friday. To be frank, the Friday Thoughts are generally a total lie. They are actually my aggregated thoughts from the entire week that I’m unable to spew out in one sitting. I’m writing this sentence on a Wednesday. Now it’s Thursday. Now it’s Wednesday again. And now it’s Friday. Get it? That’s the magic of writing! And by the time you read this, I would have already gotten married to the most wonderful, beautiful, courageous girl that I’ve ever met. I would hope that this news isn’t shocking to anyone, especially considering that only my mom reads these things. And mom, if you didn’t know that I got married, I would be very concerned about your memory. It happened yesterday. You were there. But in case some Cheeto-eating Russian Hacker Man decided to stalk my mom’s browsing history, I should probably talk about the wedding. And I’ll do so in 19 parts, because 19. So Boris, Sergei, Kyle, whatever your name is, this is for you.

1) It started back in March when we were driving to Connecticut. She still had a couple of chemo cycles left and I was learning firsthand what chronic rolling panic attacks felt like. We knew that we wanted to get married, but the idea of planning a big wedding with everyone we know seemed like a task too daunting for me to wrap my head around. So I blurted it out: “I just wanna fuckin’ marry you” and from that moment on, without me even knowing, it was set in stone. We shall get “fuckin'” married as soon as humanly possible with as few people as possible so that we don’t get stressed out and dizzy.

2) Actually, no, it started on Christmas morning. I told her that I didn’t get her much and to be fair, I didn’t. She gave me a Manny Machado bobblehead and I gave her a box of receipts. Hundreds of receipts. The hospital she had stayed at was only reachable by bus and I kept every fare documentation. And she carefully grabbed each one, stacked them and faced them in the right direction until there were only two left. The last two were actually taped to a box. One receipt was from the day she awoke from her coma and the other was from the day I figured out what to get her for Christmas. Inside the box was, you guessed it, a buffalo nickel. A really nice one, at that! It was probably worth 10 bucks! She loved her nickel and promised to cherish it for the rest of her life. The end.

3) Actually, no, the buffalo nickel wasn’t her main gift. To ease her confusion, I told an outright lie and said that they bring good luck. And if you deposit it into the Puigy Bank, your wish will come true. For those that aren’t culturally inclined, this is a Puigy Bank:

It’s a piggy bank that’s powered by a sliding, tongue-wagging Yasiel Puig. You crank him back, place the coin in front of the base, hit the button and the Wild Horse Himself deposits the savings for you. It’s basically the coolest thing in the world and it’s never leaving my coffee table. In any event, she made a wish and deposited the buffalo nickel. But then I got selfish and decided that I wanted to make a wish as well. So I opened up the bottom of the bank and the plug clunked to the ground. I got down on one knee to pick it up and extracted a ring from inside the bank. Yadda yadda yadda, we’re now married.

4) Actually, nope, that’s not how it started. It started in a dark dive bar back in September. After Rachel had yet another rough day, Kelsey, Dan and I went AWOL. After a couple of oblivion-seeking shots, I made a determination. I said that if she ever somehow got home from the hospital, I would propose to her sight unseen. 2 weeks later, I had a ring picked out.

5) No, that’s not how it started. It started back in May, in an empty apartment. After being shown bullshit after bullshit and places with only one electrical outlet, this place was our last bastion before giving up for the month. I walked around it cautiously and I saw my life unfold before my eyes. I pictured paintings on the wall, blankets on the couch, frosted windows. I saw us living here and starting our lives together here. At that moment, all of my fears dissipated. I could totally live with this girl. I could do it for the rest of my life.

6) Actually, it started on the Dumbo ride. We had a long and magical day at the Kingdom. Or maybe it was a long day. Depression and anxiety had gotten the best of both of us at points, but at that moment, it was all in the past. I held her hand and as soon as the ride started, the fireworks commenced. Man. I wished I had a ring in my pocket. That would’ve been the perfect opportunity to propose. But the thought hadn’t crossed my mind before then, or at least not in a tangible form. So that’s when the thought process started.

7) Well, no, the thought process started at her stepbrother’s wedding. It was a weird an uncomfortable time, complete with getting snubbed on hors d’oeuvres and people telling stories about dropping acid. I nervously played with a twist tie and made a ring out of it. To break the tension, I presented the ring to Rachel and said, “Rachel Wynn, will you divorce me?”. So if you ever wonder why we always joke about divorce, it stemmed from this. I can’t fucking wait to divorce her. It’s what we always wanted.

8) It actually all started when I matched with her on Tinder. I panicked for hours, wondering what to say. Some told me to just say hello, which is creepy as hell. One co-worker wanted me to send her a meme, which is impersonal as hell. I decided to introduce myself on my own terms and spew some non-sequitor that only The One would appreciate. It had never done me any favors in my online dating endeavors. I carefully structured together something to the tune of, “I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of Tommy Lasorda getting hit in the nuts with a football while wearing a Puig jersey”. She thought it was a great idea. In less than a year, it became a reality.

9) The idea is that at 3:19:19 on 9/19/19, 19 people watched us say 19 vows. This is because we are psychotic and have an affinity for the number 19. When we first started dating, there was a point where we were too bashful to profess our love to each other. So instead, like a couple of kids, we accused one another of having a crush. And then we started admitting that we had a crush ourselves. And because we’re a couple of baseball nerds, we got Chris “Crush” Davis involved in our shenanigans. So it turned into, ” I Crush Davis you”, which made no sense. So we changed it to just “19”, which is his number. To this day, we say 19 to each other a lot more than we say “I love you”. My phone is filled with about a thousand pictures of 19s that I’ve found and sent her. We are disgusting, annoying and loathsome. We are not sorry.

10) My last meal as a single man was Cheerios, an apple, yogurt, croissant and a hard boiled egg. This hotel does not fuck around when it comes to complimentary breakfasts. Nothing fancy, but there’s a lot of it!

11) I prolonged writing my vows until I got to my hotel the night before. I feel like all good vows are written on hotel stationary paper. I’m probably wrong, but it felt so right, damnit!

12) I’ve been to a lot of government buildings in my day, but I’ve never seen anything like the City Clerk’s Office. I’m so used to dark bureaucratic prisons of the soul where everyone stares forward with blank expressions. This place was warmly colored with leather couches and incandescent lights. Everybody was actually happy to be there. It was some weird, utopian dream that we never thought existed. People smiled and took pictures. They were all dressed to the nines, while we were dressed to go to the Mets game. I’m pretty sure that made us an even cuter couple.  Or more annoying. It’s up for debate. But I’m sure the people there had seen it all. They’d probably seen zombies, pirates, furries, cosplayers and meth heads. Our dog & pony show was probably small potatoes to them. Shit. Maybe we should’ve dressed up as Mr & Mrs Met. Maybe next time…

13) We really lucked out on picking a location. Instead of doing the responsible thing and going through the right channels to ensure that we had the legal right to be in a certain space, we decided that was too much red tape and did it Guerrilla Style. We had a certain spot in Prospect Park picked out and I spent 2 weeks stressing about the possibility of a hacky sack tournament being held there. I thought of many different ways to handle the scenarios. The most likely would be that the spot would be hijacked by pot smoking teens. That’s when we would approach them and pretend that we were about to have a cop wedding. I feel like that’s the best way to make degenerates disperse.  I also figured that there’d be another wedding. My solution to that would be to ask to see their permit. Because I know for damn sure that they wouldn’t have one. But then they’d ask for mine and it would turn into a game of chicken that would surely not end well. I had every right to be nervous. But in reality, most of us showed up a half hour early and every straggling goose watcher kindly buzzed off. It goes to show how powerful a wedding is in today’s society. Not a single person is allowed to treat us unfairly. Hobos clapped, scumbags smirked, drug dealers offered drugs, it was easy living.

14) I spent an hour before the wedding pacing nervously. My days of acting and attempting standup are long gone and my memorization skills deteriorated in the process. For the life of me, I couldn’t get a clear picture of the vows that I had scribbled hours before. So I sauntered back and forth, mumbling rapidly. Everyone must’ve thought that I was getting cold feet. I looked like a sputtering wreck. But then when she walked down the aisle in the most beautiful dress that I could’ve imagined, all of my fears dissipated. I realized that it didn’t matter if I remembered the vows word for word, because all I had to say was going to come straight from the heart. She totally had me distracted. I cannot express how much of a total smokeshow she was [and to be fair, is every day]. Instead of thinking about my vows, all I could think about was how excited I was to spend the rest of my life with her. And of course I said my vows correctly, word-for-word like an absolute boss. I’m a professional, damnit!

15) The reception was everything I had ever hoped for. We honestly didn’t do much in regards to planning and yet, everything fell into place nicely. We had never even been to the restaurant that we picked out. We just kind of picked it because the menu looked balanced and they were willing to accommodate us. And let me tell you, Alchemy pulled out all of the stops so we didn’t have to. They reserved for us a dank back patio that was totally perfect for the occasion. They already had sparkling wine ready to pop. We only had one waitress and she was a goddamned rock star, taking our orders with ease and getting drinks out with the quickness. My only condition that was a must for my wedding was that I would require a steak and a glass of whiskey. And my god, did I get that. The steak was perfectly seasoned with just the right amount of herb butter and my Manhattan was perfectly mixed with Wild Turkey. It was the best meal I had in a while. I felt like we truly accomplished something. Our guests must’ve thought that we had hand-picked this place meticulously. They were dead wrong. But boy, did we look right. After we had our fill and family members dispersed, it was discovered that there was a Korean karaoke joint within stones throw. 2 hours and multiple Springsteen songs later, I was left sweaty and voiceless. Dancing is overrated. All wedding receptions should end in a private karaoke room. This should become a law.  Also, I can’t believe I just called dancing overrated. I must be getting old.

16) Cutting the cake was a full ass nightmare. In all the weddings I’ve ever been to, I think I missed every cake cutting. As a kid, I was busy goofing off outside. As an adult, I was probably busy chainsmoking. As a non-smoking adult, I could never peek my head over the crowd to see how the cake cutting was done. We were both flummoxed. 20+ people stared on as Rachel [slightly blind] and I [slightly drunk] fumbled with the knife. We both treated it like a Ouija board piece, neither of us putting too much pressure to go through the surprisingly dense cake. After what seemed like 20 minutes of trying, we finally got a piece on the plate. But then I couldn’t aim properly to feed Rachel, which I can only assume I was supposed to do. I had an inkling that I was supposed to shove cake in her face, which was the dream, but the cake wasn’t easily smashable. Every attempt bounced off her face and I didn’t want to do it forcibly because I’m allegedly a gentleman. So our friends and family watched us eat cake like normal people until they got bored and booed us away.

17) I spent a good part of my life wondering what my wedding night would be like. I figured I would either get to 4th base or be too exhausted to not fall asleep instantly. But Rachel didn’t drink and I’m an insomniac, so you know what we were up to in bed. Heh heh heh.

We played Mario Kart. Years ago, when I was first taught how to drift, I’m pretty sure my friend also said that I’d thank him on my Wedding Night. Thanks, Dan. You made all my fantasies of schooling my wife come true.

18) Before you ask, no we don’t have any honeymoon plans. But if you wanna buy us World Series tickets, I’m all ears.

19) I woke up today feeling the same as I do every day. That previous sentence took a lot of retooling to not sound like a Bruce Springsteen line. Culturally, we have the impression that getting married is a big deal. And I’m sure to some people, it is. We knew very early on that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We’ve lived together for over a year. We have been through trials and tribulations with likes that nobody should ever have to experience. With all that we’ve been through together, anything short of forever would feel like we cheated ourselves. I guess I now have a piece of jewelry that I get to wear all the time. And it’s also really fun to fidget with. Beats the pants off of pulling at my beard hairs. It’s not like we have ever questioned the resilience of our relationship. I’ve never met anyone that’s so easy to get along with. We never argue and never get sick of each other. She just gets me. And after years of horrendously failed attempts, finding Rachel and being with her has felt like nothing short of a miracle. And if you’ll excuse me, my wife has been patiently watching me type for over an hour.  I need to go spend forever with her.

Try this trick over the weekend: Get married, ya jags!

Have a merry weekend, everyone!

-TeeCoZee