It had been a long day. A wonderful day to be sure, but still a long one (weddings are like that). More went right than went wrong, but I couldn’t help but think about the singing fiasco, that we forgot to eat at the reception, that the person responsible for fixing us a platter to take with us if we forgot to eat forgot to give it to us, that we were extremely hungry, and that the hotel lost our reservation. Every little annoyance evaporated the moment I carried Chrisie into our room. Of course, that doesn’t mean new ones didn’t appear.
We surveyed our room. One piece of furniture stood out for me and my pulse quickened as Chrisie said, “There’s something I have to do.”
I hoped on the bed and she . . . picked up the phone.
“Um, what are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m calling my sister.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. I need to talk to her.”
“Now? You don’t think that maybe it could wait for a little while?”
“I have to talk to her right now.”
“Now?”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“Seriously? You don’t have, I don’t know, more important things to do right now?”
Apparently not, because she didn’t hang up the phone. She reached her sister while I sighed and leaned back on the bed. I told myself it didn’t matter because we were married now and I’d have to put up with a little weirdness. It was only fair since she’d have to put up with a lot of weirdness (she still does).
As she continued her extremely ill-timed conversation, I thought about the day. When we got engaged, I tried to convince Chrisie that we should just elope and be done with it. Both our sets of parents even offered financial incentives to forgo a huge wedding ceremony. I kept telling Chrisie how much simpler it would be, but she was adamant that she wanted a large ceremony. I suggested we have a small ceremony with just our families. We compromised and Chrisie got what she wanted (not that it stopped me from repeatedly suggesting we elope throughout the year and a half planning process). Even as I mulled how nice it would have been to elope, I was still happy we had the ceremony she wanted because of how happy it made her.
She finally got off the phone with her sister and I rolled over to look deeply in her eyes. She started dialing again.
“What are you doing now?” I asked, incredulous.
“Calling my mom.”
“You’re calling your mom?”
“Yes.”
“You’re calling your mom now?”
“Yes. What’s the problem?”
“The problem? The problem? The problem is we just got married, we’re in our room, we’re on the bed, and you’re calling your mom! How is that not a problem?”
“You’ll just have to deal. Be patient. You don’t always get what you want.”
“Yes, as you and your mom told me repeatedly while planning the wedding. By the way, did you realize it already happened and that we’re married now?”
“Well, you still don’t always get what you want.”
“Clearly.” Fortunately, she didn’t hear me because she was already talking with her mom.
Now I really wished we had eloped. At least then the phone calls would have made sense because she’d have to call them to tell them we got married. As it was, I couldn’t process any good reason to call anyone. What was the point of being newlyweds if we were going to spend the evening on the phone?
As the conversation droned on, I turned on the TV and idly flipped through the channels. When she got off the phone with her mom, Chrisie looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you turned on the television on our wedding night.”
“Seriously? You were on the phone.”
“Well, I’m off now and I’m ready . . .” I turned off the TV.
“Finally. Awesome.”
“. . . to get something to eat,” she finished.
“What?”
“I want to go get something to eat.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Of course I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since sometime this morning before we, you know, got married. I’m extremely hungry, but that’s not important right now.”
“Well I’m hungry too, so let’s go get something to eat.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. We can eat later. There are priorities. I waited through two phone calls, but I’m drawing the line at going out right now.” It turns out that sometimes I did get what I wanted.
Much later after we also finally got something to eat at IHOP (because we wanted pancakes, that’s why). We were back in our room and reflected on the day. We laughed about how many people showed up, the weird relative combinations, and all the moments we would treasure.
“You know,” Chrisie said as I closed my eyes, “now I kind of wished we had just eloped.”
It’s the only time I ever wanted to strangle my wife. Okay, so I didn’t really want to strangle her, but that was really annoying. Oddly, I didn’t mention it then (yes, I have mention it several times since). I had already been married long enough to know sometimes I should just shut up (though my wife will argue that point as well).
The best part of that night was the next morning. I got to wake up next to the woman I still deeply love and she got to wake up next to me (she assures me this is a good thing)
Sometimes we both get what we want.
Stories Now Told 