Three Weddings, One Silver Dress, & A Brazilian (Part 1)

One of my girlfriends was getting married. Her Bachelorette party was at my apartment and consisted of our favorite frozen yogurt cake and a shit load of alcohol. At the time, my apartment was close to our favorite meat market bar. Only the one friend was getting married, so the rest of us wanted to hook up.

I had a stand up gig earlier that night, so when I got to my apartment, the party was already in full swing. A small slice of cake was left, and the bride-to-be was already drunk. She came over to me and asked me to go to her wedding. She said, “Without you there, it wouldn’t be the same.”

It seems weird that her Bachelorette party was at my apartment and I wasn’t planning on attending her wedding, but I was seriously

broke. Five months earlier, I had quit a high paying sales job to wait tables. The sales job consisted of working for a psycho boss, who was an unmarried forty something, who had nothing better to do than leave forty-five voice mails a day and track our every move.

If I was going to be an artist, why not have the full experience? In NYC, that equals waiting tables. Too bad I sucked and continually got fired. Breaking everything. Tripping everywhere. No balance. Spilling drinks. It’s a wonder I lasted more than a day. I bartended during that time, but only during the day. There’s no money in that, and you get sick of talking to drunks. Much better to be the drunk. At the moment of my friend’s wedding, I was in between these kinds of jobs. Essentially broke. I didn’t feel right going to my friends wedding without a gift, but how could I say no? Impossible.

The wedding was outside the city, up by my NGBF’s (Non-Gay Best Friend) parent’s house. On the night before the wedding, we drove up there and stayed over night. In the morning, after oversleeping and wasting time, we started getting ready when I realized I forgot my dress. It was in Manhattan. And since my NGBF only brought one dress for herself, I was screwed.

Panicked and crazed, I moved into warp speed. Me and my NGBF ran to the mall and sprinted into the biggest department store. We were like lunatics in a sweepstakes. The name of the game was cheap. With about ten minutes to spare, or else we’d be late for Drunky Bride’s wedding, we went over to the sales rack first. All the other dresses that weren’t on sale were three hundred dollars and up.

The dresses that were on sale were still in the two hundred dollar range, but there was this one dress. It had been marked down and marked down and slashed and slashed again. It was definitely the cheapest, and when I put

it on, it sorta fit. That dress was the silver dress. It was eighty bucks and so ugly. Two pieces. A really long, straight skirt that you had to roll and pin to keep it up. The top was almost a jacket. It was an Amish, metallic, Nun looking thing that couldn’t be any uglier if it tried. Incredulous that I was about to spend my last hundred bucks on this dress, I bought it. I was out of time. I wore it out of the store and just made it to the church.

I tried to convince myself the dress wasn’t so bad, but when I went up for communion, I knew I was in trouble. Drunky Bride was standing at the altar. She was smiling when she saw me and whispered, “I love that dress.” Now I love my friend, but if she likes this dress...? She wears bright red lipstick like the Joker and lives in Connecticut. Enough said.

I drank. I got drunk. Who cares,I’d never have to wear it again, right? Wrong! Like flies on shit. Bees to honey. It was like a magnet to my body. It just kept landing there at the worst times.

TO BE CONTINUED...