Get your indignation handy

Because you're going to need it.

So I have this friend. To preserve her privacy we'll call her Chessica. She is in her mid-twenties, very cute, very nice, and very single. Her younger sister has just become unofficially engaged. This is the time when people buy dresses and plan weddings and schedule venues but are not actually engaged because there is no ring.

I have no patience for those people. If he asks and she says yes, you're engaged. So quit being all coy about it.

Anyway, I believe I have already discussed how it's sometimes traumatic for us older sisters to have our younger sisters get married first. Yes, you have to just suck it up and get over it, but the length and severity of the process is different for everyone. So, Chessica is doing her best to have a good attitude & be happy for her sister & help out with the preparations.

Apparently, though, younger sis is not so much bothered about wedding preparations and so Mom is feeling like she needs to get a handle on everything nowrightnow! So she calls on responsible, reliable Chessica for assistance.

(Note: How happy am I now that my wedding wasn't the first one? Very. Because that mess was crazy and now mine won't be. As much. Plus I'll being hiring out for all services and will make everyone sign contracts with their own blood.)

Now we come to the extra fun. Here is Chess, trying to have a good attitude and not take her younger sister's impending nuptials as a sign that she is doomed to spinsterhood and cats. Mom calls up and tells her that a local bridal shop is having a sale, but that the Bride-to-be is too busy to go try on dresses. So what they've decided would be best is if Mom and Chessica go to the bridal shop. C can try on the dresses and Mom will take pictures for Sis to approve.

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Now . . .

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See . . .

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YEAH. If my mom ever approached me with such an idea (not that she ever, ever would, because my mom is sane), I don't even know how I would respond. There would be explosions and balls of flame and faces melting off, though. My sister Jenny says her response would include the words of "Go to hell" somewhere in there for sure.

I mean, really. Going to try on wedding dresses is supposed to be this big fun deal--when you're the bride. Otherwise you're just this sad body double thinking, "Have I just jinxed myself?" as you look toward a future of other acts of surrogacy, like when the bride doesn't want to show up for her own engagement pictures and asks you to be the stand-in and she'll just Photoshop her face on later, or when she decides that she doesn't want to get stretch marks so how about you just carry her children, or possibly when she has a "headache" she'll call up and ask you to just come over and . . . you get my point.

And yes, Little Miss Bridezilla, I am talking about you. It was your idea to have Chessica try on dresses for you since you were too busy making out with your fiance or whatever, and then when your mom called to say that C refused because she wasn't comfortable with that and it might be hard for her, you responded with, "Why should that be hard for her?"

Also? The bride is 23. I was expecting her to be 19 when I heard about the crap she's trying to pull.

So the best bit hasn't even happened yet. A few days later C's parents came over to talk to her. She thought they were going to apologize for being insensitive. Instead, they told her that they were very concerned about her attitude and didn't see why she was making such a big deal out of everything and her sister can totally see that C isn't happy enough for her and is worried that C is going to sabotage her wedding with such a bad attitude.

Shunned. All of them.

Because "being happy for your sister" clearly means "doing the bride's work for her" and other humiliating services that will require therapy afterwards. I think C should just boycott the whole thing and spend the wedding day lounging on a Hawaiian beach somewhere drinking slushy fruit drinks brought to her by hot smooth-skinned men with great shoulders. No AK-47s needed.

Posted in: dating or not so much,on my crap list