OzModius - September 2008 - The Mantle Piece

September is one of the months that either has two important events, the winding down of the summer wedding season or the kids going back to school. Some couples like the September wedding because kids can't attend if the wedding has mostly 99.9% adults and one or two children. And so you now have one of the reasons for the September wedding, but also the best reason has to be price, especially if your have four seasons like the East Coast. The West Coast can pretty much have weddings year round with some months not good for beach weddings; Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Arizona really seams to have two or three climates hot, hotter, and tornado depending on the geographical area and if your facing the gulf. But no matter where you live there still is the struggle that you have finding the perfect wedding gift.

You get the invitation to the wedding and carefully open the invitation and get the usual, which is the invitation and the stores the couple has registered for the gifts. I don't know about you, but both buying and registering for gifts are just as arduous, each event costs me 20 hours of hunting, which does not seem bad if your single, but if your married you have to practice time management. In which case; when you receive the wedding invitation; your hoping its for next month and not two months away, with two months everyone just procrastinates and then as a coordinated mafia hit, waits for that special weekend, and proceeds to purchase the same gift. Its like trying to book a business trip in the middle of "Spring Break".

Fortunately I have had the experience of the September wedding and this is how it went. Received the invitation to the wedding, but no bridal registry, so I asked my friend what he wanted, he just said "...just get me whatever, you always come up with something good, and do you have a date?", I told him "Yes, I'll have to see if my mistress (form of address) is available for the wedding." I asked Mila if she was available for the wedding, saying, "what should I wear..." soon after both questions were answered I was out buying and evening dress and a wedding gift. One of my friends offered a nice cocktail dress, which fit Mila perfectly. I never told her it was my friends prom dress, but the less she new the better. I spent close to forty hours with the dress and finding the present.

I hunted and hunted and always came up short, but then I remember my friend mentioned having a fire place and his soon to be wife joking about how a NFL boble head figurine is not a mantle piece, the first item as far as a mantle piece was an elephant and cub, but then that didn't bode to well since non of them elephants brought then any luck, so I went searching more and found something that look like sea world encarnate, but then that did not do, I even saw a tiny Budha but somethign wasn't right, so I started over again at another store and then I found it. A crystal ornament with a hole set for a a time piece, yet no time piece when I checked the package, ran back to the store, returned the clock and asked the clerk if they had something simular with a clock. "Yes, we have something simulare, but its a little smaller than what your looking for...", I asked her to show me, and told her it what I was looking for.

The next day the wedding and me rushing from CT to NY to pick up Mila, and the three hour tour like Gilligans Island, thankfully I had Mila to talk my head off driving to the wedding. All went well getting to the wedding on time, but the weather turned and so the whole thing was moved indoors, imagine snow flurrys during indian summer, but the party had good music, booze, and dancing. Towards the end of the night I had to drive Mila home, I said my good-byes to everyone, the bride asked me to one side and said, "I opened your present, how did you know...", I put my finger to my lips and said, "there are stranger things that happen in this universe everyday, just be happy I can't give a gift without putting my heart and soul into it...". With that she gave me a bear hug and a kiss and we said our farwells, On the way out my friend shook my hand and said the same thing as his wife, I just looked at him and said, "asked your wife what she just told me and I'll speak to you tomorrow.