Erin The Great

So I had never been to a Catholic Wedding before so this was a new experience for me. Most wedding ceremonies I’ve been to usually take about 15-20 minutes. Usually after the wedding party walks in, the priest says something wonderful and meaningful and the couple might light a candle. After that, or something along the lines of that, the couple will exchange vows and then rings, bing bang boom I know pronounce you man and wife you may now kiss the bride. At a Catholic Wedding, the wedding party comes in, the priest says something then the bride and groom sit down while the priest keeps talking. After almost an hour of the priest talking and a lot of standing and sitting there was the vows and then ring exchanging. About 5 minutes after THAT, there was the ‘you may now kiss the bride’. At that point my friend Kevin military dipped his new wife and laid a big fat juicy kiss on her. A job well done man!

After the ceremony, we weren’t even 30 steps out of the church when Mel and I went to go save our friend Jon who was being hit on by a random homeless guy. ‘Hey there studly!’ He exclaimed ‘you look dashing! It must be your lucky day! I have this for you… (The man pulls out a very used zippo lighter and puts it in Jon’s face) This is my pride and joy, and I’ll sell it to you for 50 cents!’ My friend Jon looks very uncomfortably at Mel and then I ‘Oh that’s ok, I couldn’t take away you’re prized possession’. ‘Ok’ says the man ‘but only because you’re so dashing!’ Awwkward!

After the wedding, and after saving Jon, Mel and I drove to the reception. We wandered around until we finally found the location, only to find out that the two of us were at least an hour and a half early for the much awaited shin-dig. Being the ‘fashionably late people that we are, we decided to leave and hold up in a more appropriate environment. After walking down the streets of Portland and realizing that we were in the middle of the raucous and havoc that would soon be one of the many parades paying tribute to the Rose festival, we found a local coffee house and watched in awe as some of Portland’s more colorful inhabitants walked, danced and sometimes moon walked in front of us. After gazing on stuff that you’d only see in movies (unless you’ve lived in Oregon for any stretch of time) we realized that we had finally wasted enough time and hurried back to the hotel where the reception was now taking place.

While walking back to the reception, Mel and I kept our heads up and alert while trying not to look directly at anyone. Suddenly we heard a voice over a loud speaker. ‘The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!’ Only out of morbid curiosity did we look at the individual. After we gazed upon the situation we quickly realized that this ‘concerned’ citizen was performing an exorcism on the city of Portland… I hate to break it to you pal but you’re going to need a lot more ‘holy water’ then you’ve got. It didn’t help that the rent-a-cop next to him was trying to take care of the situation by taunting the poor man as he looked upon Mel and I and instantly started proclaiming that we needed to be saved immediately! It was a nice gesture I guess that some random Portland crazy felt the need for the saving of my soul. Thanks man but I’ve already been saved… but have a nice day!

After dodging a few other interesting people, we made it safely inside the hotel and made a b-line for the crackers, breads and blue cheese. Finally we got a chance to sit down and relax from the day’s events. At this point I realized that I had tried in vain to keep myself up with mass quantities of caffeine. I may or may not have hit a wall at that point and needed a big pole (or a very cute catholic boy) to hold me up. I did manage to make it through though. After a crazy reception and a whole lot of drunken dancing (my personal favorite) my partner in crime and I made our way down to the car and back to Salem. We got home with enough energy to take off our shoes fall on our beds and pass out.