I like this, at least, better than the second part of my Pac-In-Time feature. Regardless of whether you do or don't consider that a significant accomplishment. Ehhh.
At the hotel, at last, there were many heated pool things. I'd never use one, but if I resort to denying their existence to make me feel less bad, then that means they've won, doesn't it. I am undefeated! After the wedding, but mentioned here because it's my last picture and makes for a dumb(er) ending, I took a tour of the ground's grounds.
The one named CHAD wrote his name. I believe it is his name, and not written in protest of the 2000 election results (despite DAD's inability to hold back a "dangling CHAD" remark) because of the choice subject matter in the above picture. When are we leaving?
Ah, here we are.
What can possibly go wrong?
This was a formal occasion.
They even brought out the nice plastic cups.
It was a nice day for a white wedding.
This makeshift Ku Klux Klam scarecrow helped keep it that way. Especially with Martin Luther King J.R.'s Cigarettes day coming up, you need to watch out for them negroes.
Here's some dope with a digital camera. At a wedding. Some people have no class.
Another with a camera asked me if I had aquired "any good shots." I hadn't, but a notable mention was this scene I encountered in a combination gas-station/Burger King's disconnected outhouse-like restroom:
"That's a start," the camera person responded, in such a way as to make me suspect he was glad I'd found the magazine he lost.
In case you couldn't figure out what type of magazine this was, coming “from the producers of Men and Freshmen,” here's the back cover. Just so we understand each other. This magazine was wet.
Among the people I recognized (at the wedding, not the outhouse) were, from left to not left: Vanna White, Julia Child, Goldberg, Sharon Osbourne, one of the fat guys from the Sopranos or the Godfather or something who probably would have seen me murdered for taking his photograph if I'd not fled the state the very next day, Chair, Caroline Rhea, Haley Jope Osment and Prince Alexander from King's Quest VI.
Just like at an award show, every space must be filled. If someone doesn't show up, another must be brought in to take their place. An understudy, if you will [allow me to use that word]. However,
I think they could have done a better job than this.
This man operating a video camera seemed to be filming me. For evidence, I suppose.
I didn't take [and keep] any more images of this actual marriage part, because this part was boring. That's not the stuff I want to remember. Other people with cameras did. Why don't you ask them.
In a different room with many chairs, and now tables as well, the lights went off briefly. After they came back on, these people stood around staring at the controls pretending to look busy, holding clipboards and talking into deactivated transcievers and whatnot.
There was a series of tables set up in buffet formation. Everything was covered, except for a basket. I approached it and learned that it contained rolls or biscuits or whatever. I thought about taking one, and even grabbed one with the metal grabby-things, but put it back in the end. I guess I had traumatized the thing, because afterwards, that person you see here standing beside the robot came along and rearranged the bread-lumps, that masterful presentation I'd apparently ruined and then looked at me somewhat irritatedly. I guess she sure showed me! Just to get the point across, she rearranged the butter packlets as well. Hey, I didn't even touch those. That one's your fault, pal.
Once the foods were liberated, twargs started lining up to pick at them, starting with the wedded ones.
Hey, they've already had their moment. Who says I have to start from the left, anyway?
Also in line, this poor fwib in the center was attacked by a wolverine before arriving at the hotel. Although the headless being on the right may also have been attacked, this was after selecting his attire, so he was my only legitimate comptetion for the evening's "worst dressed" award. Now, I'm not one to thoughtlessly enforce idiotic customs which have long since lost importance, but come on, horizontal stripes? I feel like I'm watching a Fred Savage movie.
Every person was provided with three cupglasses, one of water, one of iced-tea, and one empty. I asked one of the wandering hired people if I could have my empty glass also filled with iced-tea, since the air wasn't doing anything for me. She hinted that the glass was for wine. So I whined about my disagreements with wine, how we always get into fights and then don't speak to each other for months at a time. Eventually, I got more iced-tea, and thought meself quite the clever one for it, but soon I learned that there was a person whose job it was, possibly the same one, to go around refilling the iced-tea cups. I communicated with another human for nothing.
There's something about this style of dress that just makes me want to drop ice cubes beside the backs of people wearing it.
I had my picture book. This sort of thing, don't you know. The room was too dark and crowded to make any images, but if I don't carry the book around, no one will ask to look in it, will they, and then I can't deny the request and exert momentary dominance over whoever. This didn't happen. The only person who asked was my cousin Patrick, who despite being one whose wedding had just happened I still did not hate (although I made a comment to the contrary in an entry written before this page, I don't expect you to remember that). First of all, I complimented their use of a jelly doughnut on the album image
(I'm an idiot) The compliment he offered in return after briefly skimmering my holding was that it was better than he could do. That sounds nice, but consider that Bob Dylan can sing better than Yoko Ono can. And if I were willing to try, I probably couldn't dance as well as
this guy.
I really shouldn't pick on this person (I think you know which I mean)... pretty much everyone with a song above a certain tempo or during the "dollar dance" (pay money to cavort with the weddeds, it's a tradition, I'm told) looked fairly foolish. Unfortunately, the setting was such that mia camera needed a full second to gather enough light to capture the image, and by then a quite stupid position has changed to a merely stupid position. Even here, the x dollar bill had already been [tastefully] deposited into the front of Bride's dress by this point. Use your imagination. Oh wow, wolverine-fight woman in the background is trying just a bit too hard to look happy.
Again I was late, this is right at the end of the game of musical chairs. It's a tradition. Although the bridal one emerged as winner, I suspect the other people let her win. Trying to steal my spotlight again. Look, even the guy with the video camera is still filming me.
The cake was big. I mean, it was huge. I don't think you understand really just how enourmous that cake was. Those people on the top, they're actual size. In fact, those are the two who were married. They have buckets of flour dumped on them and stand on a gargantuan cake. Right, tradition.
I found this quite offensive. Such decor is unbecoming of a... closet with a toilet in it.
The other restroom was nicer. Instead of, you know, sinks, they have all these chairs in front of mirrors. Florida women are so vain, they'll be walking by and see a brief glimpse of their reflection and say "whoa, hold on there, me, this could take a while. I'd better sit down." The lamps are only there to waste power and distract you from the fact that there's no immediate place to dispose of those tissues once you've used them.
Even further beyond the toilet zones there were some darkened rooms. I wonder if these dead bodies are still there.
Back at the ranch, a person with the means to do so offered me a cigar. However, disappointed as I was with the response to my question "is that chocolate?," I declined.
Although the party-like portion of the evening occured immediately following the funeral-like part, I just missed out on seeing a few important people, as a quick glimpse of the guestbook revealed.
A perfect southerner stereotype warns me that if I make faces at or push his wife again he will "kick [my] ass." I tried to explain how I had not conceived of the pushing and that as a matter of fact my face always looks like that, but any valid argument I might have come up with were brilliantly countered and lynch-mobbed by "that's my wife" or "she,is,a,lady." I could only accept that an extra line one of her chromosomes has grants her full license to travel the world and drunkenly grab people. However, I have to question the validity of the honor behind your chivalry when its preferred traditional method of justice is the ass-kick. At any rate, misreading the intentions of a laughing nutball who approaches your table=bad. Applying one's foot violently and repeatedly to the hind regions of a pitiful being one third your size after making sure they're alone=good. Do you unnerstan me? Do,you,unnerstan,me?! This will be on the test.
I noticed the rain outside. I like rain. I went outside and walked around for a bit, and as I often do, with time, decided that I should go back in. Another habit of mine, I insisted on using a door. It was not the same door I had exited from, but maybe four hall-way widths away from it. Two police officers or something were there (I don't have any pictures of people who looked kind of like them). They didn't want me to come in. I told them that I could only have come out from the in-side, but they insisted that as long as they were at that door, I would not be going through it. So I didn't. I journeyed back through the dropping bits of water to another completely unprotected door, I then opened, stepped through and closed it without incident. I thought I should let the guards know I had gotten in unharmed, so I walked a couple of feet to the left, made sure they saw me through the transparent glass, and rejoined the wedding reception already in progress a few feet to the right. I like to follow-up on chance encounters, just so I won't be forgotten. If you pass by a person once, usually you'll quickly forget, but if you see that person again moments later, you can think "I've seen that person before," because you have. This is called a recurring character. I'll never be the star, so that's the best I can manage. Some more moments later, one of the few in attendance who didn't have a problem with me reported that my good friends the po-lice intended to escort me to jail if I entered whatever gathering the dopes were standing in front of the wrong door to. I think it was a high-school prom-thing. I didn't know what kind of special needs early dismissal high-school has one of those in January, and I still don't, because I hadn't gone near it. The two protectors of freedom had followed me from a distance all of thirteen steps and told their tale to someone to tell me because I probably would have made them, you know, justify their threat. Don't worry about anyone who might have slipped past their otherwise close watch while I was being tended to; if there was anyone in the immediate area who was a threat to humanity in general, that would have been me, wouldn't it.
That's the kind of thing where I almost wish I had been arrested, just to hear explained precisely how anything I had done was criminal. "The court finds you guilty on three counts of looking at a door and two counts of making someone with a gun feel stupid."
Now that I was officially dangerous, we left the gymnasium and went to the bar, Bar.
Also in the area, an arcade game controlled by a pencil sharpener. It is a fishing game... maybe this device has nothing to do with the game, and is just here to help you write your novel while you wait for a pretend fish to pull at your pretend string.
Alright, I've seen bar. Can we go? This is why I don't get invited to parties: After 2 or three hours of chattering and being served free drinks, I don't see the logical next step as chattering and paying money for drinks.
And... the next day we left. To get an idea of how that went, read the first page in reverse.