An unmarried woman over the age of twenty-one is such a rare circumstance in Alabama that it could be an X-Files episode on the Turner South Network. One of those really disturbing ones because the premise is almost realistic enough that you could imagine such a thing actually happening. As a thirty-something single woman, I have received a lot of unwanted attention from overly concerned, well-intentioned strangers. To avoid inappropriately lashing out at them, I’ve had to come up with a few creative ways to amuse myself when confronted with their distress.
For example there’s this fun little game that I play with the guy in my office who delivers our mail. It’s called “Why Aren’t You Married Yet?” The way the game is played is, every day he asks me a question, which he thinks is subtle enough that I will not understand its origin. He has narrowed his focus down to two possibilities: either I am not really as old as I say I am, or I have an indiscernible communicable disease. “How is it you’re not married yet?” is the main question, of which there are many variations, to which I respond depending on my mood: “Haven’t found the right guy!” or “Oh, just lucky I guess!” (that one really stumps him) and I’d been saving, “Because lesbians aren’t permitted to marry in Alabama!” for a particularly dull day.
My favorite question so far is, “Have you always looked like this?” No, I want to say. The reason nobody has married me is because up until just last year I weighed 350 pounds and had a problem with facial warts.
But alas my amusing little game is going to come to an end. I’ve got a surprise for the mail guy that will probably save him a lot of sleepless nights: I got engaged.
While my being engaged has caused the better part of
Alabama to let out their breath in a collective sigh of relief, it hasn’t really saved me any grief. Because now I get to be humiliated by an entirely new set of people: wedding vendors. For example, in the middle of a telephone conversation with a potential disc jockey the man asked, “Wait - are you the bride?” “Yes,” I replied, for some reason feeling as if I had done something wrong, and he clarified, “Oh, I wasn’t sure, since you sound so… mature.”
As if at the ripe age of thirty-two I will require a walker to assist me down the aisle.
To avoid this latest type of unwanted attention, I have developed a new game in which I adopt the personality of what I imagine to be the typical 19-year-old bride planning her wedding:
“Um? Hello? Is this, like, the caterer? Okay, like, I want only pink foods? So they’ll match my colors? Blush and roseate?”
Wedding vendors seem much more comfortable taking unreasonable demands from a girl just barely out of braces than discussing rational expectations with a mature, practical thirty-two-year-old. But that’s okay, because I can really have some fun with this.
“Do you know, like, the slip n’ slide? Okay because what I want is, like, a slip n’ slide down the aisle, and then, like, the bridesmaids will slide down it on their stomachs? Holding up the bouquets? Oh! And the slip n’ slide HAS to be pink or I will totally freak.”
So while getting engaged may have only increased the spotlight on my graying bridal head, it has at least provided me with a couple of interesting new hobbies. Another one is staring at my engagement ring, although that can be dangerous, particularly in heavy traffic. But the sunlight coming through my dirty windshield creates some really eye-catching effects that you’d have to be dead – or male – not to appreciate.
Any place we frequently visit has now been categorized as having “good sparkly lights” or “bad sparkly lights” and this can weigh heavily on decisions, such as where we will go for dinner. “Look!” I stage-whispered the other night in a tightly packed restaurant while flailing my left hand around over my head, “I’m making rainbows on that guy’s shirt!”
The combination of engagement giddiness, frustration with vendors, my resulting adaptation of an obnoxious nineteen-year-old’s persona, and the distracting sparkly of my ring has rendered me pretty much insufferable to most people. But ask me if I care. I’m engaged! I’m engaged! Like, totally!
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