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last wedding related rant ever. promise.

last wedding related rant ever. promise.

Perhaps I should take today as an omen.

We get to the DMV. Rather, where the DMV used to be. I called my brother in law and asked him if I had lost my mind. The DMV moved, he said. I call my sister at work, who kindly interrupts the game she was playing to look up the DMV address for me. Ok, wrong town. U-Turn. Drive back a few miles the other way.

We get to the DMV and it looks good. Not much of a wait. I fill out my papers, Justin fills out his, I get a new picture taken even though I have this stupid scrape on my chin. I sort of move my hair in front of it and look down. The nice, elderly, robotic-like DMV clerk tells me to smile. I grimace. Flash.

Justin is having a problem. He needs four points worth of current ID. He has two. He looks down the list. Nope. Nope. Nope. He says to the lady, oh look, if I go buy myself a gun I can come back with the gun license and get my ID. The lady says, or shoot me. She smiles. A little too wide.

So he's not getting what he needs today at the DMV. I, however, get my license renewed. I finally take my married name off of it and go back to my maiden name (I'm not taking Justin's name, for various reasons, one of them being that no one ever knows how to pronounce it). I turn in my old license and away we go. Next stop, Town Hall.

Oh, dear! Says the condesending snobby bitch at Town Hall. You need to have a photo ID or you can't get a marriage license. I explain that my new driver's license won't come in the mail for another two weeks. She asks me why I don't have my work ID with me. Because I'm not at work. I don't usually carry around a laminated fascimile of myself that's hanging on a 20 inch chain unless I'm really going to need it. Like, to get into work. Which Town Hall is not.

So, no marriage license. I could have gone home and retreived my work photo ID, but that would mean leaving Hempstead and coming back within a space of one hour, and being that I drive to Hemsptead (aka Downtown Beruit) every day for work, I am not doing it again.

There we are in the parking lot of Town Hall, sitting in the car and talking about where to go to lunch. A head appears in the window. Hi! The head is saying. Hi! How are you?!? I look to the cheery head and see it's my ex husband's girfriend. Guess what her name is? Yep, Michele. One L, too. Just like me.

She chats it up with me, introduces herself to Justin and says the kids are really excited about the big day, you know! Yea, I know. Because they are my kids. I don't need their future stepmother telling me that they are excited about my wedding.

Ok, it was nice of her to stop and talk like that. I'm happy that we could be cordial to each other. Especially because if my ex knew that she was being friendly to me, he would have a fit. And she knows I know that, so this was like our little secret kind of thing. You know damn well he would kill me for talking to you, but I'm doing it anyhow, maybe just to spite him. Wink, wink.

And then there was the overly long wait for lunch and the waitress who lives the phrase ignorance is bliss and the three hour shopping trip with Natalie in which I found nothing to wear but found a Betsey Johnson dress for Natalie and it was on sale. And I forced her to buy it. First she tried on this thing with fringes and then she tried on this thing that made her look like Natalie Portman in The Professional, as I predicted, and then she tried on the Betsey Johnson and I said. Stop. Collaborate. Listen.

No, I didn't. I said, we are buying that. You look adorable. You look twelve, not eighteen and you are twelve so that's the dress. Shut up. Shut...I said shut...stop...no...that will be cash...stop crying, Natalie....cooperation...you look great in the dress.....thank you, have a nice evening.....if you wear this dress I'll get you those shoes you wanted.....yes, cooperation.....no, that's not bribery it's compromising....look it up.

And somehow, I don't know how, we ended up in the pet store looking at hamsters.

If today was any kind of omen about the wedding or the subsequent years after the wedding, I am frightened. Or maybe the whole day is just a microcosm of our relationship anyhow, where we have had to overcome all kinds of things to get where we are but we keep perservering until........whatever.

I need a drink. Or a lobotomy.

Posted by on August 5, 2002 08:31 PM |

Comments

Tell Natalie that hamsters are considered a delicacy in the Andes region of South America. I'm talking roast hamster here, so does she really want a pet that might become the main item on an ethnic S. American dinner?

Posted by: sue | August 5, 2002 09:04 PM

Drinks on me tomorrow - miss annoying face b-day lunch - better be there.

Posted by: Bon | August 5, 2002 09:11 PM

Or a pet which occasionally gets out of its cage and hides behind a refrigerator which is impossible to move because it fits inside a cubbyhole in a wall with only 1/2" of space on either side?

Posted by: Linkmeister | August 5, 2002 10:04 PM

not hamsters, guinea pigs. you can buy them just like we buy chicken in the meat section of Safeway, on styrofoam trays and everything.

Michele, did you get that tattoo yet? This might be a good time. Nothing like a little extra self-induced catharsis. Seriously. Mmmhm. (I have an appointment on Thursday. Ahhh...)

And maybe let Natalie pierce something. Well, no, maybe that should wait a little while. But you know how that can save your life when you're a teenager.

Posted by: Jessica | August 5, 2002 10:04 PM

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Wait. Maybe not.

Posted by: Kevin | August 5, 2002 11:15 PM

I never surrender the license. I lie and tell them that I lost it - that way I have a photo ID while I wait for the new one. Yeah, I'm a rebel, aren't I?

Posted by: Christine | August 6, 2002 01:24 AM

drinks on me whenever I visit.
and keep the Habitrail in mind, my friend.
I highly suggest hamsters.

Posted by: James | August 6, 2002 01:42 AM

shotgun wedding!

Now i'm gonna have to come back with a gun, a passport, and a wife and say "can i have my fucking id now"

but yeah, one of greatest moments in my life happend this very day too. sitting, waiting to be interviewed for the marriage licence. there was a retarded girl with a crutch sitting down from us. she looked at me and gave me one of the sweetest smiles to have ever existed, i returned the smile with all my face muscle might. i have never felt so sad and happy at the same time i wanted to cry with joy.

Posted by: justin | August 6, 2002 02:39 AM

I could be smug and tell you about how our wedding plans went smoothly. Well right up until the week before when the DJ pulled out, the shoes got dyed the wrong colour and the wedding car company phoned to say the classic 1950s Rolls Royce we had hired wouldn't be available, would a Ford Granada (1998 saloon) do (sorry can't think of US alternatives). But you probably don't want to hear that...

Posted by: Gordon | August 6, 2002 04:07 AM

And that is why we are keeping the wedding casual, Gordon. Right now my main worry is weather.

And the caterer.

And the DJ.

And...

Thanks, Gordon.

Posted by: michele | August 6, 2002 05:30 AM

re driver's license: here in banana republic Louisiana they use computer technology--digital picture and you get your license right there, on the spot. And they now have mail renewals, so all I had to do was send a check and put up with the really awful picture from four years ago for another four years.

Posted by: sue | August 6, 2002 06:08 AM

lol, okay, sorry, i really shouldn't laugh and should instead shower you with overpowering hugs and everything is going to be bloody fine type of things and just smile.

but instead, i'll do the chicken dance, hand you a magarita and tell you..

you're getting married!

now, go revel in that.

:P

and to natalie: eighteen's not so bad you know!!! but enjoy being prepubescent(can't spell the thing) and carefree and whatever you do, don't get a hamster. get a big fat slithery snake instead.

really.

because that's a delicacy in china.

:)

Posted by: racheal | August 6, 2002 06:14 AM

I've committed myself to hamsters. And the pretty colored habitrail set up.

I've committed myself to having a fantastic wedding.

I've committed myself to getting slightly polluted today at a birthday lunch for someone I pretty much can't stand.

And now, if you don't mind, I think I'll committ myself.

James, how soon can you get here?

Posted by: michele | August 6, 2002 07:40 AM

Michele & Justin,

We all have our issues right before the big day... I should know...

4 days before our wedding, our hall in Levittown had a fire and burned down. How do you find a hall 4 days before the big day and then notify the 100+ guests? I don't know how but we did it.

Then during the reception, the caterer shorted the order and we ran out of hot food with my new in-laws side still to eat...

Then when it was time to cut the cake and my new bride was nowhere to be found... turns out she was taking a drive with my brothers friend in his new corvette...

Needless to say, my dad & I then spent the next hour at the bar drinking vodka... and lots of it...

Have fun you crazy kids...

Posted by: Frank | August 6, 2002 08:11 AM

At least it makes for an amusing story.

As for small furry pets, I suggest Gerbils... they're cute, they're clean(er), and they hardly ever bite.
hardly.

Posted by: stephanie | August 6, 2002 01:05 PM

Gerbils are too ratty looking for me. They look mean. Hamsters seem more cuddly.

Posted by: michele | August 6, 2002 01:43 PM

Gerbils are kinda thuggish. Hoodratty, if you will. Hamsters have it goin' on.

Posted by: George | August 7, 2002 07:39 AM

I about died at: "Stop. Collaborate. Listen." You kill me, Michele.

Posted by: Miss Elle | August 7, 2002 05:25 PM

Are you talking about the DMV that was in Hicksville and now its in like East Meadow or something. That was very annoying!!!!

Posted by: binkey | August 8, 2002 03:06 AM

Yea, the one in Hicksville on Hicksville Road. I had no idea they moved it. It's now on Hempstead Tpk. in Bethpage. Right over by Chili's. Yum.

Posted by: michele | August 8, 2002 05:32 AM

Yeah, the new one is OK. I must say though now that they have the new "take a number" system, it goes real quick.

Posted by: binkey | August 9, 2002 11:14 PM