Here Comes The Groom

Everything is perfect.

T-minus one hour to showtime.

“Yeah I’m headed out the door right now,” I reassure Brittiny on the phone.

“Will you relax it’s going to be perfect.”

“Love you too,” I hang up the phone and stop briefly on my way out the door to glance at my own reflection.

The curls of my moustache are perfectly symmetrical, the knot on my tie is flawless, even my teeth seem whiter than normal.

I grin at myself in the mirror and wiggle my eyebrows.

That’s when I notice it, there’s a single moustache hair sticking straight up. I can feel it tickling my nose. That hair is driving me crazy.

I frown and veer away from the hallway for a short detour to the bathroom.

“It’s alright,” I say as I pull out the moustache wax.

I scrape a bit of wax onto my finger and rub it between my pointer and my thumb until it becomes transparent. I take my thumb and forefinger and rub them along the offending length of moustache from root to tip until the right side is one long smooth line of waxy hair. I carefully roll the moustache back into shape until it is a perfect loop and wipe the excess wax into my hair. I whistle as I wash and dry my hands.

Of course, Peanut decides now is the perfect time to rub herself against me leaving white hairs all over my freshly ironed dress pants and curling up on my feet.

I sigh. “That’s okay.”

I pet Peanut for a bit, then pick her up and place her in the nearest cat bed. I find a lint roller in the cabinet and thoroughly rub down each pant leg.

Fifty minutes.

I glance at my watch. I’m still well ahead of schedule. I grin into the mirror one more time and begin to turn back towards the front door, but then I see it in the corner of my eye.

I stop. I turn back towards the mirror and watch with growing horror as the same offending moustache hair breaks away from it’s perfectly manicured loop and extends straight up and into my nose, exactly where it knows it shouldn’t be.

I growl at the offending hair. “That’s it. You’re going down.”

I pull out the extra strength fireman’s wax. “It’s time to get serious.”

The lid is frozen shut. I grind my teeth and grab a hand towel. I wrap the towel around the lid and squeeze with all my might until the veins in my arms are bulging and then threatening to explode. Could that actually happen?

Then, all at once the lid pops open at least one microsecond before I started fountaining blood everywhere from the strain. I’m breathing heavily, the sweat from the exertion has caused most of my finely quaffed hair to fall into my face, and then I start gagging.

I look around. Naturally, Peanut has decided that now is the perfect moment to take a trip to the litter box in the corner of the bathroom. Like a good roommate, she cleans up after herself, diligently digging with her paw to cover her droppings with clean litter to control the odor. At least that’s what she’s doing in theory. Unfortunately, in reality she is digging outside the litterbox, rubbing paw futilely against the bathroom tile so the smell is not actually controlled at all when she zooms out of the bathroom.

Forty-five minutes.

I sigh. “It’s okay.”

I push back my hair and look around for a lighter and then light the candle above the litter box and get back to the mirror. The smell becomes more bearable.

I return to the mirror and the fireman’s wax. I repeat the waxing ritual and carefully loop the right side of the moustache. It’s working, but it’s not quite right. I can’t get the loop correct. First it’s too small, then too large, than it’s to ovular. Somehow my teeth seem to have grown more yellow and crooked since the last time I checked. I pull my hair in frustration.

Forty minutes.

I continue to try to wax the offending moustache side, it is still not lining up, a fly has started buzzing around and I get distracted by swinging at it with the fly swatter for a while.

No good. The thing just keeps flying around. I grab a bottle of soapy water and spray at it. It falls down, suffocating. Bullseye.

My moustache did not fix itself in the interim. I’m about ready to give up on the whole thing.

Thirty minutes

I brush my teeth again, scrubbing them thoroughly despite the futility of the effort. I know intellectually that my teeth look the way they look and that’s not going to change, but I feel compelled to try to look good nonetheless.

After two minutes I spit and return to the mirror. The right side looks even wonkier than I remember leaving it. I scream silently at the mirror, gnashing my teeth and spraying spittle everywhere.

I feel a little better as I try unspooling the left side of my moustache to make it match the right side. This is a mistake. Now both sides of the moustache are wrong.

Twenty five minutes.

I remember my grandfather’s favorite trick and grab a skinny Crayola marker and a stick of Elmer’s glue. I rub the glue along my moustache and roll it with the marker. It holds! I pick out a bit of glue and pull the marker away. The hair sticks to the marker as I try to pull it away, unfurling the entire thing. I groan.

Twenty minutes.

Okay, one more idea. I wrap the left hand side around the pen and grab a can of hairspray and spray it down. I just need to hold it for a few minutes to dry. I glance at my watch in horror.

When did it get so late?

And to make things worse, that damn moustache hair is sticking straight up again. I bounce up and down waiting for the hairspray to dry, but it is in no rush.

Fifteen minutes.

Fine. I’m cutting the damn thing.

I keep the marker in my left side with one hand and grab my scissors with the other. I carefully align them with the hair and cut. I miss. I’m too far forward. I try again. I’m too far back. Distance is really hard to judge in the mirror.

I lean forward and try to get my face as close to the mirror as possible to minimize the margin for error. Peanut is screaming at me for some reason. She’s probably hungry.

I press my face up to the mirrored glass and I’ve got it almost perfectly lined up. I flush in victory moments before my sleeve catches on fire.

I scream and jump and inadvertently close the scissors. A tuft of moustache falls lazily down into the sink.

I curse and smack my wrist with my other hand for several seconds before realizing I can just run it under the sink. The cool water is a welcome relief on my fresh burns.

Ten minutes.

“Okay, I can still fix this. I grab more wax, but it’s still wet with undried hairspray. I try the right side and that’s when I notice that I have cut off half my moustache and it’s not long enough to make a circle anymore.

I cry a little bit and take a break to feed Peanut a can of wet food.

Five minutes.

My watch beeps at me and now I start running without looking at any mirrors.

As soon as I step outside, a garbage truck hits a puddle next to the sidewalk and absolutely drenches me.

I scream at him and start chase him up to the next stoplight. I feel completely manic.

0 minutes

I catch up to the garbage truck and start kicking it inanely, my shoe gets stuck in the ladder thing on the side. A guy steps out of the passenger side door. He looks big. Really big. And angry.

I gather up my courage and square up. The distance closes between us and I realize that my nose comes up to his jugular and my shoulders end about halfway at the end of his shoulders. I promptly turn around and run away as fast as I can.

-5 minutes.

I sprint back along the street and up to the front door of the church. I’m soaking wet, missing a shoe, half my sleeve is burned off, I’m inexplicably covered in cat hair again, half my moustache is missing and the other half looks like a crazy straw, my hair shooting off in ten different directions, and I look for all intents and purposes like I just fell out of a tornado.

I grin and attempt to maintain some kind of dignity as I walk down the aisle. I feel incredibly aware of the sea of whispers in my wake.

Brittiny is already standing at the alter, she takes one look at me, snorts, and then laughs aloud in an uncontrolled belly laugh.

I turn beat red. “Sorry I know I look like well—"

Brittiny calms down eventually, wipes her eyes, and smiles at me.

“It’s okay. It’s good even. You have no idea how nervous I’ve been. It feels like a huge weight just fell off my chest.”

“I live to serve,” I say grinning.

She pulls me into a long kiss.

Everything is perfect.