And woke up by the river, in Jeff City, MO...
Unfortunately, I never knew how true the lyrics to that Big&Rich song would be to my life. But this weekend, that was the exact story of my life, and not for any entertaining purpose.
This was the weekend of Hillbilly Hell! The title that I gave to this weekend turned out to be way too true to life!
Let me start from the beginning...
On Thursday afternoon, I was scheduled to fly out of the Phoenix airport, headed to Memphis, to make my connection to Columbia, MO. (Which the bride said, was a little smaller than KC or St. Louis.) Besides the fact that the TSA peeps took my ice packs for my lunch box, everything went as planned. In Memphis, I met up with the only other bridesmaid, who I had never met before. Again, this was pretty normal. It was when we boarded our plane that things started to turn. After you gave the lady your boarding pass, she said, "go down the stairs and stay inside the white lines to the last plane in that group." Excuse me? This was not a joke, after you walked down the stairs, you were on the tarmac and there were about seven planes sitting there with their engines running. Imagine if you accidentally boarded the wrong plane and ended up in Shubuta, Mississippi?? That would be a bad day! Unless, of course, you ran into "Ol' Yella' Dawg."
The flight wasn't bad, even though we were on a prop plane the size of a closet, and we made it to Columbia without incident. Once there, Alabama Slamma* and her fiance met us at baggage claim and we headed to Jeff City to find something to eat. Of course, when we got out to the car and loaded our bags they gave us each a beer. As far as I know, it is still not legal in Missouri to drive around with an open container. Apparently, they were not concerned about this small detail.
They asked us repeatedly what we would like to eat, and neither of us really cared, we were just hungry, so they took us to a Mexican food restaurant. (I will stop here and let you know that the other bridesmaid was from West Texas. The both of us are familiar with good Mexican food, and I'm pretty sure we weren't going to find it in Missouri's Capitol city.) Either way, we sit down, the fiance orders two pitchers of margaritas and we enjoy a small dinner before heading to our hotel - correction, motel. We are staying at the Econo Lodge because the MOB is paying for it. I would have gladly paid and upgraded!!
So morning rolls around and the bride and groom have to meet with the pastor, so the Texas Tornado* and I spend the morning with a walk to McDonald's (in pouring rain with people looking at us like we were crazy) for coffee and getting ready for the day. At around 11, the couple shows up and we all go to get lunch.
We then spend the remainder of the day running ridiculous errands that should have been completed prior to the day before the wedding. Literally, all day long, we ran around town dropping things off, picking things up, and comforting Alabama because her mom is a raging psycho and wasn't coming into town until the day of the wedding. This was not fun. I now have two questions before agreeing to be in a wedding: what color are the bridesmaid dresses? and have you hired a wedding planner? If the answer to both of those questions is not what I want it to be, the answer is no. (If you are reading this, and someday hope to have me be in your wedding, the ideal responses are the black dress of your choice and yes. There are a few other combinations that will work, but if the second answer is no - I'm out.)
At some point, we go to the house of the couple, where they have cats. Yes, cats, plural. And they live in the house. And shit in a box. It smells and I wanted to die! Also, the cats get on the kitchen table. In my opinion, there is nothing more disgusting than a cat (or any animal for that matter) on a surface where food is prepared or consumed. This is the ultimate "face-punch" offense. I'm serious!
That night consisted of a bbq at the house. Oh, are you wondering where we fit rehearsal in? We didn't. Because her parents could not inconvenience themselves to come the day before the wedding, we were scheduled to rehearse at 1:00 pm the day of the wedding. Which also means, no rehearsal dinner. Thus, the bbq at the house. About 10 people showed up - it was not much fun and the hamburgers were burnt. And, everyone made a big deal about the guacamole that the groom made and it was literally just mashed up avocados and a packet of seasoning. This is what they considered good Mexican food...
The day of the wedding turned out to be the worst of them all. We were instructed to get to the house at 8:30 am to begin the day's activities. We had to check into the hotel that they would go to after the wedding, get ready for the wedding, pick up the flowers, rehearse the ceremony, get the groom's daughters ready for the wedding (did I mention that he has a 10 and 12 year old that need their asses whooped like you wouldn't believe?!?!), getting dressed, taking pictures, and then finally the wedding.
The rehearsal was more chaos than I can handle! It was like I was dealing with a bunch of apes who had never even been to a wedding. How hard is it to walk down the aisle and then back again? Apparently for these folks, it was like doing quantam physics - completely impossible!
Finally, the wedding was over and it was time to head to the reception. Fun, right? No. The entertainment was an accordion player. I can't make this up. An accordian player who apparently knows over 4,000 songs. To me this is not admirable, it is a good reason to get punched in the face. When we got to the reception, we ate, did toasts, cut cake, the couple did their first dance (they decided to forgo the accordion playing for this and used a CD), did the chicken dance and hokey pokey, threw birdseed on them as they left, and went home. I was in bed by 11:30 pm.
I wish that I would have video taped one conversation with the MOB - this woman is literally the MOST redneck, hillbilly, knuckle dragging person I have ever met. Picture a cross between Granny from "Beverly Hillbillies" and the adoptive mom from "Pete's Dragon." If I'm lyin', I'm dyin' people. She would be a dead ringer if the two of them procreated. Every other word out of her mouth was a curse word and usually the F-word. She can't have any conversation without talking about sex or drinking. And when the man told her that she couldn't take her beer out of the reception facility, she flipped him off. I felt like I was at a southern Special Ed Fraternity party when I was around her. The woman is ridiculous.
The groom's parents obviously were not fans of the bride and looked like they were being tortured the entire time.
The other bridesmaid told me that she would be shocked if the marriage lasted 10 years.
The only entertaining part of the night came when a little boy, who was about 5 had the following conversation with his dad in the hallway outside of the bathrooms:
Dad: Here's the boys room, but someone is in it. Let's wait here.
Little Boy: (pointing to the writing on the door) Is that how you spell boy?
Dad: That says Men
LB: (pointing to a door across the hall) What does that say?
Dad: That says "private."
LB: (after a short pause) Oh, that must be for girls.
It was HIILLLARIOUUUS!
When we arrived this morning for our flight, we had to ring the bell at the desk for someone to check us into our flight. I asked if I could get on the earlier flight and the gentleman who also worked as the maintanence man and baggage person, told me that he wouldn't know until he knew how much fuel he had. What? Do you not have a tank out there? Can't you just put more if you need to??
Apparently not, but he did have enough fuel for me and I was able to get a seat. So we walk around to security and it is closed. Apparently at this airport, security only opens 10 minutes prior to the plane leaving so you just hang out in the lobby while you wait. And the only other things in the lobby are two rental car counters and three vending machines. A little smaller than KC and St. Louis turned out to be the understatment of the year...
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