"Si, quiero..."

Dec 15, 2005 21:09

Why do I ever open my mouth?

Yesterday afternoon:

Amy: Hey, want to go out to dinner?
Me: No, Hospital Central comes on at five o'clock.
Amy: What's that? A TV show? You're passing up food for TV?
Me: Yes. It's like ER. But better. And in Spanish.
Amy: Oh. ER sucks. Weaver's hardly on anymore.
Me: Well, there are lesbians on Hospital Central.
Amy: Are they evil?
Me: No.
Amy: Ugly? Old? Insane?
Me: No. They're very nice young-ish lesbians.
Amy: But there are never nice lesbians on TV.
Me: Well, maybe one of them will freak out at the wedding.
Amy: Who's getting married?
Me: They are.
Amy: Lesbians are getting married? On TV?
Me: Tonight. At five. Well, ten, technically. You know. Spain.
Amy: Spanish lesbians? Not Mexican soap opera lesbians?
Me: What's the difference?
Amy: I don't know. Spain just seems classier. Can I watch?

So Amy came over for a gay wedding. But first, she told Mia, Ker, and Andrea about it. So they begged to come over, too. And they each told people who told people who told people. And everyone wanted to attend a gay wedding in my bedroom. Because it turns out that I'm the only person with a satellite dish that gets the channel (which is, like 9400, or something). By two o'clock, seventeen people had already asked to come over. Seventeen people can't fit in my bedroom. And my TV is small.

No problem. Mike and Jase brought over their giant plasma TV and set it up in the basement, then ran a cable extension through the house. Apparently, gay boys love lesbian weddings too. By four o'clock, twenty-three people had converged in my basement. My neighbor, who's in her seventies, came over to make sure everything was all right. Because when you're seventy and you see a dozen cars pull up to one house within ten minutes of each other, your first thought is, "Oh, I wonder who died..."

I tried to mumble my way through an explanation that wouldn't give her a heart attack, but Lexi chose that exact moment to run through the room with a fruit platter, screeching, "I just love queer weddings!" The following ensued:

Neighbor: Queer... weddings?
Me: Ergh. Uh, there's this TV show, and a, um, gay... wedding.
Neighbor: I see... Well. Who's getting married?
Me: Uh... Maca and Esther. Maca is short for Macarena.
Neighbor: Like that dance?
Me: Yes. Just like... the... dance.

At this point, the conversation was beginning to seem surreal. I mean, I don't have contingency plans for discussing homosexuality with the elderly. Or dance crazes, either. But we still weren't done...

Neighbor: Should they be getting married?
Me: Well, they're in Spain. And gay marriage is legal there, so...
Neighbor: No, I mean... Is it a good thing?
Me: Um. I think it's good. I guess it's a generational... thing.
Neighbor: No, no, no. I mean, are they right for each other?
Me: They're TV characters.
Neighbor: But are they nice people?
Me: Yeah. Maca is a pediatrician, and Esther is the head nurse.
Neighbor: I see. Well. A wedding sounds nice.
Me: Would you... like to... come... watch? With us?
Neighbor: Could I?
Me: It's in Spanish.
Neighbor: I taught Spanish for fifteen years. Italian for ten.
Me: Wow. Okay. Um... Come on in.

So twenty-five people huddled around the plasma for almost two hours to watch Maca and Esther say "I do." Well, actually, "Si, quiero." Whatever. And now I'm terrified that every Wednesday evening, people are going to swarm to my house begging to watch TV with me, since almost every person there, at one point or another, said, "Oh my God, this is so much better than ER!

Anyway. It was a lovely wedding. Even my neighbor thought so. She said, and I quote, "I wouldn't have turned that girl down, either." She was referring to Maca. The tall, leggy one. Although, I'm fairly certain she wouldn't have turned Esther down either. Her husband is probably spinning in his grave at this very moment.


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