As I mentioned in my last blog, I was in Salamanca, New York, over the weekend before last, and while there was much, like magic blueberries and baby goats, to hold my interest otherwise, my primary reason for being there was to witness the marriage of Jennifer and Trevor, as the date of Sarah, the Maiden of Honor.

Sarah’s reasoning in inviting me was sound. On one hand, she could have invited a gentleman friend, but then he (and she) would have had to endure the whole “meet the family” fiasco, not to mention spending two nights in the Trailer/Chalet with Sarah’s parents. Not that Saundra and Neilbert aren’t pretty cool for grown-ups, but still. In lieu of all of this, Sarah decided she’d invite me to be her Plus One, thus ensuring that there would be no awkward “meet the guy I’m sleeping with” moments with her family; plus, I already know and like her parents, and don’t mind sharing a trailer with them at all.

So on Friday I picked Sarah up promptly at 1:00 as she was leaving work, and after fortifying ourselves with giant, fast food burritos from Qdoba (my fast food weakness!), we made great time flying up 79 North and then venturing on into New York, making it to Salamanca in three hours, in plenty of time for Sarah to get to the rehearsal at Holy Cross Catholic Church.

I tagged along, of course, having nothing else to do but take some snapshots and listen, instantly charmed, to the priest, a Polish immigrant of earnest good will who had picked up the verbal tick of asking “OK?” at the end of almost every sentence he uttered. (He also admonished everyone that if he smelled alcohol the next morning before the service on anyone, he would refuse to proceed with the wedding. See, this is why you should go for an Irish priest.)

I realized belatedly that I had walked into Church with a button on my jacket that had a small drawing of a man’s naked torso on it, with a small heart drawn at the end of an arrow pointing towards the penis. Gauche, I suppose, but apparently no one noticed it. Because it wasn’t, apparently, minutes after I left before Jennifer, who already knew the score on Sarah’s call to make me her Plus One, was fielding questions about whether or not I was Sarah’s lesbian lover. Now I realized! At the end of the rehearsal, when Sarah was chatting with the priest, he wasn’t staring at my little penis pin! He was sizing up my short, short haircut and my vintage Communist propaganda pins! Sarah had brought a Communist Lesbian to her cousin’s small town wedding!

The rumor only spread at the rehearsal dinner, hosted by Trevor at the restaurant, Myers, he co-owns. Uncle Howard caught me walking in with Sarah and asked, “Who are you?” I replied, “I’m Sarah’s date.” Pause. “Well that’s just great!” It sure was just great. It got even greater when it got out that I wasn’t just a Communist Lesbian — I was a Communist Lesbian who didn’t eat meat! Trevor, alerted by Sarah and Jennifer that I was a vegetarian, took care to make sure there was a plain cheese pizza on hand amongst the pepperoni. So there I was: a Communist Vegetarian Lesbian! Oh, how the Big City will change a girl …

I didn’t mind, of course, and several of Sarah’s family members were in on the gag. I wasn’t even the only vegetarian. Still, the next day at the wedding, there I was, Sarah’s date. The service itself was very nice. I’ve inveighed before about my distaste for weddings and the way people go crazy over them, but Jennifer is a very down-to-Earth sort of girl, and their ceremony, though bigger than one I would cobble together, was otherwise perfectly reasonable. Perhaps because Trevor is a Methodist, there wasn’t a wedding mass, only a ceremony, though it was presided over by the Polish priest. Trevor’s Methodist minister was there to help, and his youthful bemusement at the goings on of a Catholic wedding, complete with a foreign, heart-rendingly earnest priest, was fun. He looked alarmed when he accidentally made reference, in a jointly spoken prayer, to Original Sin, but otherwise, I think the Methodist God was as satisfied as the Catholic God. Jennifer, of course, looked beautiful, and Trevor looked charmingly excited and terrified, and I only felt sort of ridiculous as the first person to process out of the church after the wedding party. Communist Vegetarian Lesbian, coming through!

The reception was nice, insofar as I was at Table One and so got to hit the buffet first, though upon reaching it, I was greeted by no less than four meat dishes — and no vegetables! Why have green beans, I suppose, when you can have Kielbasa? That’s OK, as the carbs, I’m sure, helped me soak up the free beer. Sarah gave a properly odd toast, which you can see by clicking here and visiting my YouTube page, and I gave a present to Sarah’s cousin Smooth of a warm can of I.C. Light, in memory of his visit to Pittsburgh a while back, during which a good time was had by all.

Speaking of Smooth, if you thought I was done being scandalous, you were wrong. As Smooth was the only gentleman of approximately my age that I knew at the reception, I asked him to dance, and he took me up on it. Later, I heard from Smooth’s mom (who was in on the lesbian joke) that a relative had seen Smooth and I dancing and come up to her to say, “Looks like Smooth is going to get some tonight.” Apparently, if you didn’t think I was Sarah’s lesbian lover, you thought I was the slut from out of town Smooth was gonna get a piece of! I guess that makes me a Communist Vegetarian Bisexual? I suggested a threesome, just to add a little bit of incest to the mix.

We danced away anyway, secure in our scandal, while Sarah got tipsy and Jennifer got a bit tired looking — that dress must have weighed a ton. Lest you think I didn’t put a cherry on the top of the night, though, so to speak, I had one last scandalous encounter before we headed home after a fun day of nuptials. At the bar, I encountered Uncle Howard again, and he had also been partaking of the free beer, it seemed.

Uncle Howard: “You know, you are just lovely.”
Me: “Thank you.”
Uncle Howard: “I’m not hitting on you, though.”
Me: “Why not?”
Uncle Howard (laughing a bit nervously): “Well, my wife’s here for one.”
Me: “Then heaven forbid.”
Uncle Howard: Glances away and then glances back.
Me: Licks my lips.

Saundra says it’ll probably be enough to turn Uncle Howard vegetarian.