...the Idiot who Faints at his Own Wedding
I stood by the inner entrance of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in North Easton, Massachusetts, wearing the first-ever tux of my life. It was what they call an Indian Summer day in the south suburbs of Boston—mid-October, 80 degrees outside—and when I saw the minister closing the back doors to the church my entire body clamped up and said That’s not good. Then I walked up the aisle, past the four people representing my portion of the guest and the hundred-plus representing my betrothed’s, and stood by the altar waiting for her.
The woman I speak of, by the way, is not the woman I am married to now—not the mother of my two irascible, maniacal sons. My fainting doomed my first marriage to an early end. Maybe someday I’ll write about the very juicy tales that surrounded the end of that marriage, including heavy petting with my then-wife’s girlfriend in the spacious font seat of a 1973 Buick Centurion.
Piqued your interest, didn’t it? Like I said, maybe someday…
At any rate I stood at the altar, waiting for my betrothed to walk past her family and friends and all the people she grew up with. And I sweated like a pig in my wool tux, tugged at the collar for air, air. Couldn’t get any, because the church was full and the doors were closed and Why was I marrying this woman anyway? And on top of that I had made the mistake of sleeping the previous night—after flying up from Florida, where I attended grad school—in my future in-law’s house, which was home to a 13-year-old dog and a 17-year-old cat. That’s a lot of animal dander, to which I am quite allergic, and in preparation for it I had brought along a wide variety of antihistamines.
I took several of them the night before but still woke up sniffling. And hell if I was going to sniffle my way through my own wedding! I took a bunch more in the morning, then a bunch more before the ceremony. One of them—given me by my best and oldest friend, M________, who had flown in from Colorado to see me get hitched—was called Seldane, and the FDA eventually pulled it from the market as unsafe for the liver or heart or some other important bodily organ.
(M_______, I hope as you read this that you realize I bear you no ill will for what happened. We’ve discussed this before, right? Laughed about it? You and the Seldane you gave me were part of the infernal machinery of fate, just one piece of the perfect storm of heat, antihistamine overdose, and unadulterated anxiety about marrying my betrothed that ended in my wedding-day unconsciousness. To this day I thank you for your small contribution to it. Think how much happier I am now than I might have been with her!)
So my betrothed reached the altar and our ceremony began in earnest. My older brother Tom, my best man, gave me funny looks as I started to sway a little—maybe rock would be the better word, because my weight shifted back and forth from my heels to my toes. People told me, later on, that I looked like I was moving to the rhythm of the minister’s voice. I kept rocking, too stupid to grab Tom’s elbow, and right before the vows began I fell backward, straight as a tree falling in a forest.
And I even remember thinking about that question: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” Of course it does, I knew as I hit the floor. What a stupid question! Months later I heard a tape of the wedding, and the fall sounded absolutely thunderous. You could actually distinguish the found of my body hitting the floor from that of my head hitting the floor.
Even more impressive were the gasps from the pews. Talk about shock and awe!
Seconds later I regained consciousness, pulled of my tux jacket, stood, and shoved my arms in the air like I had just scored a game-winning touchdown. The guests who had been gasping began to cheer (which was also great to hear on the tape, and quite vindicating). Tom took hold of my elbow to keep me steady, the minister opened the doors as I asked him to, and we went on with the ceremony as if nothing had happened. Afterwards, in the receiving line and at the reception, people from my betrothed’s family who had never met me hugged me and slapped my back. “What an icebreaker!” a few of them said, or words to that effect. They thought I had spunk, though it was clear that my then-wife would never, ever forgive me. I put my best face forward, laughed more than I had to, drank too much, and put on a less-than-stellar performance in bed on my first night as a married man.
A few days later we moved to Florida and everything started to unravel. My then-wife sometimes dreamed that we weren’t really married, that the marriage “didn’t take,” and it’s hard for me to imagine that my fainting didn’t have something to do with it. In truth, we weren’t supposed to be with each other in the first place. We’d gotten together too young, given up our virginity to each other, and stupidly believed that we could go to the afterlife having slept with only one person in our entire lives. At least I believed that—you’ll have to check with my ex for her side of the story.
I must have learned some lessons from my fainting experience, but I’ve also forgotten them. Such is the beauty of life, no? Wouldn’t it be terrible if we had to remember all the lessons we’ve learned? Then we’d never have the pleasure of making the same mistakes all over again, or the equal pleasure of being able to flog ourselves over them. I, for one, couldn’t handle a life like that at all.
Vive the river Lethe. All hail.
The woman I speak of, by the way, is not the woman I am married to now—not the mother of my two irascible, maniacal sons. My fainting doomed my first marriage to an early end. Maybe someday I’ll write about the very juicy tales that surrounded the end of that marriage, including heavy petting with my then-wife’s girlfriend in the spacious font seat of a 1973 Buick Centurion.
Piqued your interest, didn’t it? Like I said, maybe someday…
At any rate I stood at the altar, waiting for my betrothed to walk past her family and friends and all the people she grew up with. And I sweated like a pig in my wool tux, tugged at the collar for air, air. Couldn’t get any, because the church was full and the doors were closed and Why was I marrying this woman anyway? And on top of that I had made the mistake of sleeping the previous night—after flying up from Florida, where I attended grad school—in my future in-law’s house, which was home to a 13-year-old dog and a 17-year-old cat. That’s a lot of animal dander, to which I am quite allergic, and in preparation for it I had brought along a wide variety of antihistamines.
I took several of them the night before but still woke up sniffling. And hell if I was going to sniffle my way through my own wedding! I took a bunch more in the morning, then a bunch more before the ceremony. One of them—given me by my best and oldest friend, M________, who had flown in from Colorado to see me get hitched—was called Seldane, and the FDA eventually pulled it from the market as unsafe for the liver or heart or some other important bodily organ.
(M_______, I hope as you read this that you realize I bear you no ill will for what happened. We’ve discussed this before, right? Laughed about it? You and the Seldane you gave me were part of the infernal machinery of fate, just one piece of the perfect storm of heat, antihistamine overdose, and unadulterated anxiety about marrying my betrothed that ended in my wedding-day unconsciousness. To this day I thank you for your small contribution to it. Think how much happier I am now than I might have been with her!)
So my betrothed reached the altar and our ceremony began in earnest. My older brother Tom, my best man, gave me funny looks as I started to sway a little—maybe rock would be the better word, because my weight shifted back and forth from my heels to my toes. People told me, later on, that I looked like I was moving to the rhythm of the minister’s voice. I kept rocking, too stupid to grab Tom’s elbow, and right before the vows began I fell backward, straight as a tree falling in a forest.
And I even remember thinking about that question: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” Of course it does, I knew as I hit the floor. What a stupid question! Months later I heard a tape of the wedding, and the fall sounded absolutely thunderous. You could actually distinguish the found of my body hitting the floor from that of my head hitting the floor.
Even more impressive were the gasps from the pews. Talk about shock and awe!
Seconds later I regained consciousness, pulled of my tux jacket, stood, and shoved my arms in the air like I had just scored a game-winning touchdown. The guests who had been gasping began to cheer (which was also great to hear on the tape, and quite vindicating). Tom took hold of my elbow to keep me steady, the minister opened the doors as I asked him to, and we went on with the ceremony as if nothing had happened. Afterwards, in the receiving line and at the reception, people from my betrothed’s family who had never met me hugged me and slapped my back. “What an icebreaker!” a few of them said, or words to that effect. They thought I had spunk, though it was clear that my then-wife would never, ever forgive me. I put my best face forward, laughed more than I had to, drank too much, and put on a less-than-stellar performance in bed on my first night as a married man.
A few days later we moved to Florida and everything started to unravel. My then-wife sometimes dreamed that we weren’t really married, that the marriage “didn’t take,” and it’s hard for me to imagine that my fainting didn’t have something to do with it. In truth, we weren’t supposed to be with each other in the first place. We’d gotten together too young, given up our virginity to each other, and stupidly believed that we could go to the afterlife having slept with only one person in our entire lives. At least I believed that—you’ll have to check with my ex for her side of the story.
I must have learned some lessons from my fainting experience, but I’ve also forgotten them. Such is the beauty of life, no? Wouldn’t it be terrible if we had to remember all the lessons we’ve learned? Then we’d never have the pleasure of making the same mistakes all over again, or the equal pleasure of being able to flog ourselves over them. I, for one, couldn’t handle a life like that at all.
Vive the river Lethe. All hail.
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