Saving Yourself

I just watched that Rebecca Black 'Friday' music video and now I have an endless loop of "Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun" stuck in my head. That's exactly how this weekend felt. Like an auto tuned thirteen year old singing about partying and dancing. So disturbing but you can't help but watch the damn music video for it.

I started off the weekend (sort of) with aforementioned corned beef and cabbage fest, followed by a corned beef and cabbage hangover. Friday ("Friday, Friday, Friday...") involved eating more corned beef for breakfast (why) and then realizing that my I had a bridal shower to go to in two hours.

Not just any bridal shower. Back story. I went to SPU. As in, dry campus, "cross your legs for Jesus," Christian university. Believe me, I had no idea what I was getting into went I signed on there. Anyways, almost seven years after freshmen year, my first college roommate is getting married. As in, "saved herself for twenty-five years and has no clue" getting married. Eeek.

I arrive at the bridal shower (way up in North Seattle, in a quaint little three bedroom house shared by three twenty-something Christian girls) and survey my surroundings. There are metal folding chairs arranged in a subservient little circle in the living room. A "love seat" that my grandma would have thrown out ten years ago and two stiff backed velvet chairs sit in the corner, daring someone to sit on them. Doilies. Coasters. Paintings of pastel flower petals. A magazine rack with Readers' Digest. A candy dish. Yeah.

The next five hours of my life (I had no way out of there, it was a half hour drive from my apartment, I had gotten a ride with someone and there were no buses that ran anywhere within a mile) were spent in this circle of metal folding chairs, playing "ice-breaker" games with women that I didn't really want to get to know. When it came time to open presents, the bride-to-be carefully unfolded pale pastel packages of pajama sets and knee-length slips from Nordstrom ("Every girl needs some decent slips" everyone nodded). A few of her closest friends felt comfortable enough to giggle and hand her some sort of present with "lingerie" inside (a stiff, cheaply made disaster of black lace and straps, probably purchased from "Lover's"), although these present were considered gag gifts. I myself had actually found an incredibly beautiful, well-made Betsey Johnson nightgown in dark purple (it was on sale, and only one left, and I could barely let myself give it away) but the bachelorette simply put it in the pile of gag gifts and didn't say a word.

After the presents we sat around, not knowing what to do. There didn't seem to be any devices for playing music in the house, and our awkward coughs bounced painfully off the bare walls. One of the women, who seemed to be magically tipsy on sparkling grape juice (the one bottle of champagne had been politely sipped away among 12 women, much to my dismay, who at this point was frantically texting my friend "THERE IS NO ALCOHOL LEFT GET ME OUT"), suddenly leaned in towards the guest of honor and smiled with an all-knowing grimace, "So, nervous for your wedding night?"

If the bride wasn't nervous at least the other ten unwed, virginal girls were. Everyone stopped fidgeting and leaned forward, hoping to catch some sort of advice. The woman who had asked the question had already been marked in my brain. She was the one who had demanded that we "ice-break," earlier, had this loud, all-knowing voice that you just couldn't drown out, and now, with an aggressive flash of her wedding ring hand, she decided to let everyone know that she was married, not a virgin and thus, the Expert On All Things Sexual.

The discussion that ensued made me want to laugh, cry and vomit all simultaneously. It was the worst sex advice I had ever heard, and I grew up in the Wisconsin Public School system where they make you watch three explicit home videos of teenagers explosively birthing out babies while screaming and crying as the main component of their abstinence-only program.

I finally managed to escape around 11:30. I headed straight for my favorite bar, where my sweet, wonderful "living-in-sin" boyfriend was waiting for me with a large beer. Now that's true love.