Tricky RSVPs

One of my friends is getting married on the 22nd of May. I'm not too pleased about that date because it's a Sunday. Marriages should be on Saturdays so that the party can last longer into the evening. Plus it might give participants more time to travel.

I got the invitation a few days ago, and the RSVP is due this Friday. Stacy happens to also be a friend of the couple and I thought it would be fun to ask her to be my date for the wedding. Two nights ago I called her up from Schnuks. I was in Schnuks because I needed to buy some happiness. The two public libraries in town didn't have the book I was looking for on Actionscript 3.0, which is a programming language. In this case I was looking for oatmeal, because I wanted to make musli cookies. The cookies turned out great, I used oats, dates, papaya, honey, bananas, apples, and some other tasty ingredients. But getting back on track here, I was in Schnuks and called up Stacy. But I had a bad signal. This is what essentially what I heard on the phone:

Hi....no.....love to....need a date.....pool closed.....people here.....cake.....party.....choir.....bye.

Combined with what I said, I translated all that as: Hi Greg, no I don't know if I'm here for the summer, yes I'd love to go to the wedding, oh yeah you need a date, even if I do end up being a life guard the pool will be closed in May so I'll be free, people are here I made a cake and we're having a party, I'm expecting to get an invitation at noon Mass since Jenny is in the choir with me, bye.

Now because I have next to no social life and most all my friends are dweebs I don't get invited to a lot of weddings. So of course I had to make Mom happy and give her a call. Mom was rather pleased with the news, even though I reiterated to her that we are going just as friends. This is how the rest of the conversation went. I asked, What's this `M' all about on the RSVP? You put an r, s or rs after it and then sign your name. Oh really, I had no idea, I thought it was an abbreviation for a fancy word. Speaking of this, who is the envelope addressed to? I said `Mr. Greg Hudson'. Then you can't bring a guest. But the RSVP asked how many people I am bringing. So what you think you can bring 7 people? It did occur to me that they left themselves open there. No Greg, if they wanted you to bring more people they would have addressed the envelope as `Mr. Greg Hudson and Guest'. That's the silliest thing I've ever heard, why on earth would anyone make this so complicated, of course I can bring Stacy. Greg, you're wrong, I can just see you bringing her and them telling you there's no room, did she get an invitation? I think she's getting one this Sunday since she's in choir with Jenny, but the RSVP is due this Friday so I'm a little confused on that point. Just go call your friend and ask him and if it's a matter of cost delicately offer to foot her bill.

So I called my friend up, and being the clueless wonder he is about his own wedding he told me to call his fiance. Well I don't have his fiance's number so I sent her a message asking if I could bring a guest but not telling her it was Stacy. I then put it out of my head and went to Mass. Unfortunately after communion I had a giggling fit because the thought popped into my head, `this is why you can't have nice things like a girlfriend'. What a mess this was. During Mass my friend called, so after I got out I rang him back. He asked me who I wanted to bring as a guest. I said Stacy. That got him laughing, especially when I told him that I had asked Stacy before I found out how these types of invitations work and the fiasco this had caused. He said that he and his fiance's original plan was to invite me with the instructions to then invite Stacy. But after he heard how my date went they decided to invite me singly and have Stacy be in the choir at their wedding. That explained the miscommunication on the cell phone. Then he said that since we were both coming and Stacy agreed to be my guest that they would seat us at the same table. And all was fine.

This morning I saw my reply from his fiance which was written before I talked to my friend. And she said what my friend said. "We were expecting your guest to be Stacy, but not being sure how things were between you to we decided to invite you separately. Don't worry we will be sure to sit her on the other side of the room. Out of curiosity who is this lady friend of yours that you want to ask? Once we figure out who is coming for sure we'll be able to tell you if you can invite her." Shortly after she must have talked to my friend because she sent another message saying to ignore everything she just said.

That was quite a story, and after all that I wrote Stacy an e-mail this morning detailing this whole ordeal because I thought she'd find it funny. Later on this morning she wrote me back, saying it was indeed very funny but was glad it all worked out. And then she told me that she just got off the phone with her Mom, who said she has to go to Disney World from the 17th - 23rd for a family vacation and will not be allowed to leave early to go the wedding.