Clownbombing.

 

Professional photographers generally agree that 2023 has been
the worst year to date for clownbombing of weddings.

I think it's been going on for some time -- why, in all the groom pictures from my wedding, there's a clown front and center! 

Latvia #1!

My wife, the master yarn crafter, was watching a video online about Latvian mitten knitting by a woman who had studied the art. 

It would appear that Latvia is especially renowned for its mittens. Who knew?

Well, a lot of people, I guess. Ravelry has a ton of pages devoted to it, and don't even ask about Etsy. And of course there are books, like Lizbeth Upitis's Latvian Mittens: Traditional Designs & Techniques.

As the kiddies would say, It's a THING!

Here are some now!

Of course, that begs the questions: Why mittens? Why Latvia? Why now? 

Flag of Latvia

The CIA World Factbook says that the former Soviet Union republic only has mild winters, and indeed the nation's Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre confesses to an average winter temperature of about 24 degrees Fahrenheit -- not exactly the Arctic freeze one would associate with the need for the world's finest knit mitts. So it's not a matter of cold-weather survival that has made Latvia #1 in mittens. 

Latvian version of the
foam #1 finger
(artist interpretation)

According to Latvians.com, a site dedicated to Latvians and their culture:

Latvia is famous for the fact that the oldest mittens have been found here by archaeologists. They are estimated to be approximately ten centuries old. The tradition of knitting mittens stems from the cold weather of Northern Europe; although it is worth mentioning that centuries ago mittens played a decorative role as well. By fastening them behind the waistband, they were worn in summer as a bijouterie and adornment. For several centuries they were the main form of gift and endowed with magical significance.

Nowadays Latvian mittens, so diverse in their colours and patterns are still an essential part of our winter clothing. Although there is always the possibility to wear synthetic gloves, the originality, tradition, warmth and sense of Latvia that is knitted into a mitten will be always worth a compliment.

But it isn't just the craftsmanship, even the one-upmanship, that might come from knowing your mittens are better than someone else's that make mittens so important in Latvia. There is also a tradition connected to weddings, according to this Latvian site: 

An ancient Latvian wedding tradition says that unmarried girls have to fill up their hope chests before entering the marriage. It’s an old tradition, that was respected by their mothers and grandmothers, so from early childhood girls were taught to knit, embroider, crochet and sew to be able to fulfill their chests with knits and other handicrafts. Knitted mittens were one of the most important things of the chest and also an indicator of girl’s skills. They represented patience and imagination, because every mitten had to be knitted in a different design using different patterns, otherwise the brides were laughed at. The most lavish chests contained several hundred pairs of hand-knitted mittens. This could not have been done if not the rich and diverse Latvian ethnographic culture. Each pair of mittens has its own story, his own unique pattern and what is most important – each pair of mittens holds his own meaning and comes with it its own wish.

As these mittens were given as a gifts, every girl was trying to do their best and was competing among themselves to create as many as possible creative patterns, color compositions and shades.

That seems to have created an atmosphere as brutal and bloody as one of our more crushing competitive events, like the Super Bowl or the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Can you imagine being a bride and getting laughed at on your wedding day because your mittens suck? 

"Ha! Ha! What is on those mittens, Hello Kitty? Are they from the ostruble store?" 

"You should never know the kiss of true love with mittens like that!"

"We laugh at you, bride! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Think of the pressure! As someone who has the manual dexterity of a left-handed ox, I'm glad I was not born a Latvian girl. My wedding would have gotten more laughs than the Depp-Heard trial. 

So it seems that this is just one of those things. It started out to keep warm, and turned somehow into an important cultural statement, like the shtreimel. I've seen ultraorthodox Jewish men wearing those fur hats in the summer on the Sabbath, and if you ask me, when July rolls around, I'd rather have mittens fastened to my waistband than a fur hat on my head. 

Eat it.

Quite a few years ago my wife and I were honored to be invited to a colleague's wedding in Chinatown. We were very touched to be included, along with some other people I knew, and were looking forward to it. It was a beautiful ceremony, a gorgeous blend of Chinese tradition, Christian church, and no fewer than three outstanding dresses for the bride at different parts of the evening.

We were also promised an amazing feast of many courses. I was a little wary, knowing that this was not going to be the takeout that Americans normally think of as Chinese food. But we had recently started to frequent a wonderful Indian restaurant and were all in on that cuisine, so we figured this might be a similar situation.

As you might guess, it was not.

To my uncultured Ugly American palette, what we faced was just dish after dish of weird things from the sea, stuff you would throw back, stuff that might make you give up fishing forever if it landed in your net. Everything seemed runny, gummy, wobbly, gushy, weird. We and the other white folks at the table were fighting over the rice as the meal progressed. Also, we of some Irish extraction drank all the beer before the reception was half over. (Meanwhile, the groom, who did not like to drink, was borne by tradition to toast every table of the large extended family with Chivas Regal.)

I bring this up as an example of why I think it's perfectly natural to resist unfamiliar food, and the more unfamiliar the stronger the resistance. My wife has lately taken to watching the show Monsters Inside Me, and if you are trying to lose weight this new year, I advise putting it on during dinner. 

Monsters Inside Me details the real-life horrors of people who at some point contracted a terrifying disease, most often caused by parasites. Doctors are unhelpful, because early symptoms and signs are confused with more common complaints -- but eventually the effects turn hellacious, and usually life-threatening. If that's not enough, the show provides gruesome magnified animations of the "monsters" at play in the body, munching, bursting, oozing, and multiplying. My wife turned it on once and the narrator was saying something like "When the fungus finishes eating the natural bacteria on the eyeball, it can adapt to eat the tissue of the eye itself." I called out from the kitchen, "That is the most typical piece of dialogue you can imagine from the show." Every episode I've seen includes little talks from Dr. Daniel Riskin, explaining why these creatures are so deadly and how many people they kill. He's lots of fun at parties. 

No offense to our wedding hosts, and I can promise you no one got sick there, unless it was from too much Chivas Regal. The only reason I bring it up is that there are consequences to eating unknown foods in strange places, especially things that have not had the hell cooked out of them, and we seem to have a natural urge to avoid foreign things if we can. Evolutionary biologists might say it comes from millennia of watching Og or Thunk so hungry that him eat weird thing raw and then him turn green and devoured from inside out. Our natural reaction to new food, thus, ranges from caution to spurning to horror. 

Heck, what's more anodyne than American peanut butter to those without food allergies? And yet I'm told many people from foreign lands think it's weird and won't touch it. 

It's not a bad idea to be cautious when sojourning outside the country. As the CDC says, "International travelers can be at risk for a variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases. Travelers may acquire parasitic illnesses: through ingestion of contaminated food or water, by vector-borne transmission, or through person-to-person contact. Contaminated food and drink are common sources for the introduction of infection into the body." I think Monsters Inside Me has turned my wife off sushi permanently.

It's not bad enough that eating raw crabs or something can infect you with a parasite that will kill you. It's that the parasite may also make you want to kill yourself. You may have heard that the common cat-related Toxoplasma gondii parasite is linked with depression, but so too is Ascaris lumbricoides, which may be ingested if good hygiene is not observed.

Which got me to think of chef and author Anthony Bourdain, largely remembered for traveling around the world and eating weird foods on shows like No Reservations. Well, now I have reservations -- I wonder if his mental state had been wrecked by some ingested parasite. If the autopsy did not look for it, we'll never know; Bourdain was cremated. 

I'll add a note too to Andrew Zimmern, host of various Bizarre Foods shows: Bring a microscope with you when you dine out. Or Dr. Daniel Riskin.

Fredding season.

MEN! You all know how hard it is to make real-live friends these days. But maybe that hasn't stopped you from finding that special someone who has roped you into marriage. Now you have to get your act together and produce groomsmen! Here it is, wedding season, and your only male friend is your cat, and he's been neutered! What to do?

Let Rent-A-Fred be your solution.

Yes, boys, for a reasonable and nonnegotiable fee, you can have Fred appear as a groomsman in your wedding, swearing that he has known you for years. You'll need to provide the rental clothes, of course, but don't worry! Fred cleans up real good. And he doesn't care what kind of monkey suit the bride picked out for your party.

Your rental friend Fred will retain a quiet dignity with a wry sense of humor throughout the proceedings. He will assure the bride's family that she isn't marrying a dodo -- look at his classy friends! -- but will never make them think she should have married Fred instead. He knows which fork to use at dinner, will praise every aspect of the meal, won't get drunk and hit on the bridesmaids, and will be friendly to your family and hers. At no added cost, Fred will Chicken Dance and Macarena and Electric Slide and Hokey Pokey on an as-needed basis.

Studies show* that wedding parties that include Fred get 35% to 38% higher collection on the dollar dance. He practically pays for himself!

Upgrade to our Gold Key Package and have Fred as your best man! Fred will arrange your bachelor party so you can have all kinds of stories to tell later, even if it's just you and him and your neutered cat. Don't worry; we'll come up with something.** At the rehearsal dinner, Fred will make a heartfelt toast to the happy couple that will bring laughs and maybe a little tear to the eyes of the wedding party.*** And he will be extra careful not to tread on the feet of the maid of honor, even if she wears size 13 gumboots and dances like a rhinoceros.

So remember, sad friendless male, for a nominal fee you can have turn your Wedding into a Fredding. You can't afford not to!

* Studies from the F.K. Institute of Marriage Sciences.

** You'll have stories, we promise.

*** Charming fictional slide show of our friendship included at additional cost.

The Summer of Adventure! Part 3.

[Dear Readers: Thanks for sticking with us through chapters 1 (here) and 2 (here) of our thrilling 5-part serial. On to 3!]

😎

The Summer of Adventure! 

by Frederick Key

Part 3

Horrid Cousin Tor’s wedding was worse than they could have imagined.

Now really into summer, the beach wedding would have been a hot, sticky, and thus uncomfortable affair even if it hadn’t been for the mounds of seaweed and the clouds of gnats and mosquitoes and gawkers hanging around. Henry, who believed that tattoos were only legal because it was unconstitutional to force people to wear signs that said Stupid, was impressed that Tor had found a woman with more ink than he had. Some nice work on her face, in fact. Her family and friends were equally charming.

“Well, this is pleasant,” said Henry later, under the tent at the reception, to Jane and his sister Kerry. “I had no idea that trailer parks had communal areas.”

“It is a modular home community, not a trailer park,” said Kerry through clenched teeth. Kerry was Henry’s older sister, the only other person in his immediate family to show, even though it meant leaving her dog, Screwball, home by himself for the day.

“This is your family, so be nice,” muttered Jane.

“Oh, I’ll be nothing but nice,” said Henry. “Her family looks like they wouldn’t be put off from violence by mere threats of arrest and prosecution.”

There was a cash bar, which could not have been more thoroughly raided if it were free, and various card tables set up as food stations labeled meat, yardbird, spuds, and other. There was no calamine station, sadly. Henry had that feeling he’d had many times in the last decade, that he’d be a lot more relaxed if he hadn’t been accompanied by Jane, a normal human being. After all, he’d had to deal with these people all his life. It was his family.

But not his immediate family, thank God. His parents had moved to North Carolina, and for this occasion they had sent presents and excuses. North Carolina, Henry had heard, was quite a nice place to be, and sounded even nicer right now.

“Do you get the feeling there might be a little tension between your aunt Pauline and her new daughter-in-law?” asked Jane.

“Why would you say that?”

“Nothing, no reason… except Aunt Pauline just tipped the DJ and now he’s playing ‘Highly Strung’ by Spandau Ballet. And Hazel keeps looking over at her.”

Nervous smiles filled the tent.

In response, as best as they could follow, the bride requested Huey Lewis and the News’s cover of “Mother-in-Law.” The groom’s mother countered with Matchbox Twenty’s “She’s so Mean,” and the bride responded with Less Than Jake’s “Escape from the A-Bomb House.” Pauline, with no smile at all, asked for Led Zeppelin’s “Your Time Is Gonna Come,” prompting the bride to strike back with Three Days Grace’s “Just Like You.” By now Tor was cringing behind the bar, pounding down drinks. His mother could not be dissuaded from going nuclear with Black Sabbath’s cover of “Evil Woman (Don’t Play Your Games with Me).” Kerry vanished. The bride hit back with “Mother” by the Police, which Henry thought showed a little weakening on her side, but it must have struck Pauline hard because she went straight to Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.” The bride then started going through the envelopes on the gift table, gathering enough cash out of the presents to bribe the DJ, and Henry turned to his wife and said, “Call your mom in the car and tell her we’re coming to get the kids early.”

👰

The week that followed had a perverse effect—somehow Henry’s ducking out early from the wedding got his family mad at him.

“How bad could it have been?” asked his father on the phone. “It didn’t make the papers.”

“You come up and meet the bride’s family and tell me,” said Henry. “They had gotten up and were scowling and clenching their fists like they needed to grab some broken bottles. I got the feeling they didn’t mind spending time in the House of Many Doors and would be willing to go back to make a point.”

“So you left Kerry with these people?”

“She had gone to the bathroom and never came back, so I assumed she’d run for it.”

“She said she came out and you’d run away with Jane and she was scared to death. And your aunt Pauline is furious.”

“Don’t drag me into this, Dad.”

Henry’s mother, Pauline’s sister, thought Henry should have exercised a calming influence at the reception, acting as a soothing balm on the scratched-up souls as the “representative of the sane side.” Henry's mother had been doing that for Pauline since they were little girls. And now Kerry was mad at Henry for running away, saying she would never speak to Henry again. Ever! Not even a little! 

“Maybe we should have tried to defuse the situation,” said Jane, looking guilty. “Blessed are the peacemakers, right?”

Considering that Jane hated his mother’s family Henry found that kind of thick, although she was tight with his mom and Kerry. “All right, fine, we’ll be goodness and light from now on.”

♥♥♥♥♥♥

The Kingslips’ foray into being goodness and light lasted until Wednesday, when Jane told Henry over chicken nuggets, “I can never go to the park again!” and started to cry.

“What now?”

Hal had eaten all his nuggets, and Nug was passed out with his bottle (not unlike Tor’s father, Uncle Pinky). Phoebe was building a fairy castle out of nuggets and mashed potatoes.

“I had fight with another mother today,” Jane said.

“Okay, kids, scram,” said Henry. “Well, not you, Nug, you should stay for this.”

Nug continued to sleep while his siblings cheerfully scrammed. Jane continued. “Her son punched Hal and I—I just went off.”

“It was clobberin’ time.”

“No, stupid! But I yelled. Why don’t you listen?”

“Can’t say. Why did Hal get punched?”

“They were fighting over the springy horse.”

“So the kid just reared back and wham?!”

“After Hal pushed him, yeah.”

“Hal pushed him? Then he started it!”

“He did not! A push is nothing like a punch! Everyone knows that!”

“Well, there’s not a mark on our little bruiser. That other kid must have been a weakling.”

“That doesn’t matter! I yelled, then she yelled—I just snapped.”

"And you punched her."

"No I didn't!"

Henry went over to her side of the table and hugged her. “You were defending your young, like a good mother.”

“I was acting like an idiot who winds up on YouTube. ‘Jerk Blond Mom Goes Nuts.’”

“Uh, no one was recording, I hope.”

“No, no…”

“Sweetie, I know you’ve been stressed out with the dental surgery, the wedding from Hell, the lecture on bad territory canvassing from the five angry lesbians…”

“Only three are lesbians.”

“…and your wiseass blockhead of a husband. I’m surprised you didn’t slug her.”

“I can never take the kids to the park again!”

“Sure you can! We’ll go at two a.m., and—”

It was Henry who wound up getting slugged.

😷

Henry’s fillings, which hurt his mouth and his wallet, came at a bad time. It was the Saturday of the church carnival, and he and Jane were volunteering in shifts at the bake sale booth.

The catch was, they had been trying for weeks to keep their own children from finding out about the carnival. Bad enough they were going to Hershey Park; they didn’t need local empty calories too. Plus, the kids would be too small for any of the rides and the games, which would leave them doing nothing but “eating cotton candy until they pastel-barf in the backseat,” Jane said, and Henry concurred.

It hadn’t been easy keeping them in the dark. Posters all over town. “Fortunately, only Hal can read, but not worth a damn,” said Henry to Jane. Still, for a month they had to become Communion Sprinters, hustling out of church immediately after Communion so the kids wouldn’t hear the carnival announcements.

It seemed to have worked. Then that Saturday morning Henry came home with half his face numb, drooling, the pain starting to seep in, to find all three kids whining like bad brakes.

“Whuh habben?” asked Henry, who had been expecting to find the children shuffled off to Jane’s parents.

“I don’t know!” said Jane. “They just knew today was the day. Osmosis or something. Then they got it out of me, that Mommy and Daddy got to go to the carnival and they didn’t.”

“Whad dey do, wahberboard you?”

“I tried to say it was a big-people’s carnival…”

“Oh, Lord.”

It turned out not to be a disaster. Jane and Henry had been planning to take turns at the booth anyway, so while one took a shift at the booth the other minded the kids at the parish center, with minor excursions into the fair. The kids did manage to eat poorly -- funnel cake was the most nutritious thing they got -- but no one got sick.

Henry almost did, actually. Jane had gotten him a frozen lemonade that hit the two brand-new fillings and his head nearly exploded.

The pastor popped over by the booth just as Henry was clutching his mouth in agony.

“Hi, Henry,” said the pastor. And quietly, “Mrs. Carlucci’s pecan squares do the same thing to me.”

⛪

At last, the big family weekend away arrived, and with it a gastrointestinal virus that blew through the family like a cyclone. Hal brought it home from a playdate at Jane’s sister’s; Hal generously donated it to Phoebe, who kindly shared it with Little Nug. That was Friday. Henry and Jane were only mildly affected, if you call having to deal with three small children with liquid bowels mild. The poor kids were so miserable that Henry couldn’t spare any pity for himself, even though his brilliant idea of paying for the motel in advance to get a discount meant no refund for the canceled trip. “At least we kept the trip a surprise from the kids,” said Henry. “They’d have been inconsolable if they knew they were missing the Sweetest Place on Earth over this. It could have been worse.”

“It can always be worse,” said Jane as she collapsed in bed that Saturday night. “That doesn’t make it good.”

“What, projectile diarrhea not your idea of a great weekend?”

“I am having my tubes tied,” said Jane slowly, “by a crew of sailors, knitters, Boy Scouts, and gift wrappers so that nothing will ever go into or come out of them again.”

Henry collapsed next to her. “I’ll put a want ad up on the Sailor, Knitter, Boy Scout, and Gift Wrapper news site.”

🚽

Jane, who had apparently become a plague to other mothers and a rascally varmint at large, next got into a flame war on Facebook with her own sister.

“Julia knew Tommy was sick and let Hal come over anyway!” Jane told Henry on Monday night.

“And you called her out on it?”

“I wouldn’t have made a peep if she hadn’t sarked me over us blowing money on a trip we couldn’t take. ‘Who pays in advance when you have small children LOL,’ she wrote. Jerk. Now she’s not speaking to me. And it was all her fault!”

“None of the sisters are speaking to us. Sweep!”

He held up his hand for a high five, but Jane left him hanging.

😡

[Can Henry and Jane have any luck this summer? Return for the penultimate chapter tomorrow!]

How to be a pitiful jackass.

"Fred," people never say to me, "I would like to be a first-rate douchebag, the kind of person that is open to scorn from just about everybody. What should I do?"

Well, imaginary person, there are many things you can do. You can father children and ignore them. You can steal things from people who have nothing and use it for your own pleasure. You can push over little old ladies and laugh as they sprawl in the street.

And you can do this:

It may not be clear immediately what you are looking at, but I shall explain.

This is a church, and these are pews. And yes, there is a man in jeans, when most every other man is wearing a suit and tie. Does this mean he is the one I am thinking of, like the wedding guest in Matthew 22:

But when the king came in to look at the company, he saw a man there who had no wedding-garment on; "My friend," he said, "how didst thou come to be here without a wedding-garment?" And he made no reply. Whereupon the king said to his servants, "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the darkness, where there shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth."

Nah, as much as I regret the slovenliness we have descended to in our society, the ignoramus in the bad pants was just abetting the real jackwipe next to him. That guy, in the black, whose collar was up and whose necktie was askew and open halfway down his chest, that guy was responsible for this:

Yes, he was watching a football game on his mobile device during the wedding.

This is the kind of thing that someone does in maybe a Billy Bob Thornton or Seth Rogen movie and everyone finds it funny, because no one could be that crass, that stupid. Well, guess what?

Seeing this guy do this tell you several things immediately:

🙈 He has no respect for the bride or the groom.

🙈 He has no reverence for or even awareness of the solemnity of any religious ceremony or place of worship.

🙈 He has no manners.

🙈 He has no idea how to pay attention to something that doesn't have an obvious interest to him.

🙈 He's someone who can't listen to or sympathize with others, because his self-interest is all he sees.

This was not some big huge full-Mass wedding; it was a short service, a little more than half an hour. When it was over he pushed outside as fast as possible to have a cigarette. Screw the confetti to shower the happy couple; he wasn't going to participate. They were lucky he was there at all.

I missed the reception. I'm sure he was a barrel of fun there.

You may say, "Well, Saint Fred, unless you're perfect yourself you shouldn't be judging anyone."

I reply: We all make judgments. It's a survival skill. It's the basis of law and civil society. Don't twist Matthew 7:1 on me---"Judge not lest ye be judged." The next verse is "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." And you know something? If I were to fall lower than the assholiest day of my life and watch a football game in a church during the wedding of a loved one, I should and ought to be shamed for it.

Kids, if you want to grow up to be a dickweed like this guy, you'll have to work very hard to prevent yourself from having any respect for anyone but your own precious self. Make sure everyone knows how little you think of them by ignoring them even on the most important day of their lives. You wouldn't want to give others a hint that they matter.

Bride alert.

We are almost through Wedding Hell Month---or at least, that's what the caterers are likely calling it. They probably make a fortune in June, but they must be stone cold crazy by now. Offhand, I think only wedding caterers and surgeons can ruin someone's life forever because they had a bad day at the office.

I've been to many, many weddings, and seen many of the marriages fail, I'm sorry to say. One wedding I went to was on the rocks (no lie) before the reception, because the groom decided to snort cocaine and get hammered with his bike buddies right after the ceremony. He eventually turned up, I guess. It was a long time ago and it was NOT my family for a change, all right?

Of course, the structural problems in a relationship that can't survive the interval between the ceremony and the reception should be very evident before anyone starts thinking of whom to ask to be the flower girl.

I don't know a lot about what motivates brides to choose their grooms. After all my years kicking around I have only discovered a handful of things about women, such as: women love bad boys who are secretly good boys and hate good boys that are secretly bad boys. I do know a lot about men, though, and I gladly share my knowledge of men who are not fit to marry decent women, just so that the decent women will think twice before trothing the pledge or banning the posts or entering the lists or whatever they call it.

GUYS YOU SHOULD NOT MARRY

• Guy whose only exercise comes from fleeing the scenes of accidents
• Guy whose idea of formalwear is a tank without vomit stains
• Guy who shaves his eyebrows---nothing else
• Guy whose iPod shows that only one song has been played more than once---"The Horst Wessel Song," 8,210 plays
• Guy who insists on coming along to pick the bridal gown; keeps saying no because "Mommy would never wear something like that"
• Guy who insists that every date iron a shirt on his abs
• Guy who keeps calling you "Herschel"---unless your name is "Herschel"
• Guy who needs Cliffs Notes to get through a Chinese fortune cookie
• Guy who couldn't pick you out of a lineup because he's never glanced up from his phone
• Guy who keeps nervously asking to borrow your ATM card
• Guy who writes on all the wedding invitations, "Gifts must be in the form of Bitcoin"
• Guy who you met in the bar---and never see anywhere else
• Guy who says Sister Wives is the BEST SHOW on TV EVAAAARRRR
• Guy who lists his official address as "the cellar"
• Guy who has turned his entire garage into the deck of the Enterprise
• Guy who claims his previous relationship was with a Lawson sofa "and the bitch broke it off"
• Guy who tells you on the first date that he's "pretty much nailed everything in the shop"---and he's not a carpenter
• Guy who considers himself a class act because he only uses "a dedicated hypo" to inject heroin
• Guy who tells you about his great job that he may go and get one day
• Guy who likes calling you by his own name in the throes of passion
• Guy who drives you to meet his parents, but makes you use the shovel
• Guy who wants to show you his collection of "pre-chewed foods"

I know there are many, many others, but consider this a primer.

Weddings and japes.

It's almost June, or as the magazines tell us, wedding season! Much like hunting season, you have to get a license. You have to buy special clothes. You get to eat afterward. And also like hunting season, even if you think you know what you're shooting for, you may have some surprises when you bring it home.

If you're a wedding guest this season, you may think it's a great chance to pull some classic practical jokes. Think again, buster! Doing something destructive and ruining someone's special day just for a stupid joke is absolutely out of bounds. Don't even consider it!

Not unless you have a really, really funny idea.

So do not take any of these ideas to heart:

• Bribe caterer to make exploding cake.
• Wire up mother-of-the-bride's pew; when the minister asks if anyone has any objections, send enough of a jolt down the line to make her leap up like terrified pigeon.
• Arrange big ball to drop from above altar right as the couple says "I do" so they can be chased out of the church Indiana Jones-style.
• You know that special rug they unroll down the aisle for the bride? Get one reinforced so it snaps back like a slappy bracelet.
• Sneak into groom's room the night before ceremony; raise hem on rental pants legs five inches.
• Superglue on groom underpants also an option.
• Secretly stuff softballs down every toilet in reception hall.
• Replace all meat in catering kitchen with Spam.
• Dance floor? WD-40!
• For outdoor weddings, hire a biplane to seed the clouds. Or buzz the ceremony. Or at least to trail a banner casting aspersions on the virtues of the bride.
• Beach weddings require flash mobs of spontaneous nude bathers.
• Hire a hooker to come in during the ceremony, slap the groom, depart. Hilarious!
• Find out if bride is allergic to any flowers and replace bouquet with bunch of that. Can you say gesundheit?
• Replace DJ's music files with complete collection from 31 Years of the Lawrence Welk Show.
• Band? Stuff cheese in the instruments like Lucy Ricardo did on the way back from Europe.
• Secretly change the names on all the hotel reservations.
• Call minster to reschedule wedding; get boozy bum off street dressed as minster; break into chapel before wedding; pay phony minister to perform ceremony. Tell couple 10 years later they get a do-over.