it makes my last post seem a little less crazy. . . a little

I had turned my back to the boys, and beer was running down my chin. Two-thirds of the way in, I gasped for air before beginning again.

College was worth it like never before, and those sorority dues were paying off.

Ted had assured me I didn’t have to do this if I thought it would end badly, but it was going great, and I could hear them getting excited.

Ted’s friend I’d only just met declared, “If she’s pulls this off, you’ve got to marry her.”

And Ted’s brother claimed, “That is my future sister-in-law.”

I turned around as triumphantly as is possible when you are wiping beer from your face with the back of your hand, and raised the empty pitcher.

Those boys were easily impressed. There was only a glass and a half of beer in that pitcher, maximum. And once you say you can do something, you kind of have to do it.

“That’s my girlfriend,” Ted put his arm around my waist. No one ever said he fell in love with me ’cause I’m so classy.

Later I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for people who were still inside, a course your night tends to take when you’ve been drinking beer out of pitchers.

I don’t know how Ted’s brother’s thought began, but it ended, “. . . when you get married. Or maybe I’ll be in the wedding. . . ,” with a characteristic raised palm and shifted chin that means question mark.

“Of course you’ll be in the wedding,” Ted told him.

I told Ted I only want three bridesmaids, and he said he could probably narrow his people down to three.

“Oh, and my brother,” I added.
“But will he go on your side or my side?”
“My side.”

And then Ted told his brother’s friend he could be an usher.

~beatrix