Missouri - Part II

Although I didn't know it at the time, traveling to Sedalia was the easy part. The onslaught of twenty-three inquisitive relatives proved far more overbearing than the mouth of the now infamous Super Stewardess. As soon as I opened my Grandmother's front door, I was bombarded with the usual out-of-town relative questions:

1. So how is the job?
2. How was the flight? Did you have any trouble checking in?
3. You look tired - can I get you anything to eat? (By the way, every ailment is typically cured in the Midwest with the application of grease or some derivative thereof)
4. Have you lost weight?
5. Are you seeing anyone?
6. Did you get the birthday card I sent you?
7. Did you like the birthday card I sent you?
8. How are your mother and father? (And yes, they were standing right next to me)
9. Still sittin' in traffic?

In case the last question sounds a little odd to you, I will dutifully explain. You see, every year my father hosts a family fishing trip on the Potomac. We launch from Fletcher's Boat House which is right off Canal Road. In the morning, when we set out for the water, traffic runs one way, so we always listen to WTOP - "traffic and weather together on the eights" - to get a fair warning of adverse driving conditions. This little routine brings my uncles to tears. There is nothing they find more hysterical than listening to traffic reports to go fishing. Granted, they come from a place that does not have rush hour, let alone more than a half-dozen stop lights. But they also come from a place that believes you go fishing to relax - not dodge gridlock. Let's not digress...

So we decide to get ready for the wedding. I, being the textbook Yuppie I long to be, wear a bold suit, shirt and tie combination. My uncle, the father of the groom, the Best Man, asks me, "Why the hell you wearin' a tie?" I respond only with a blank stare as a I await the punch line. It never comes, so I respond generically, "To keep 'em guessing." He returns the blank stare and an awkward moment ensues. Fortunately for both of us, the silence is broken when my other uncle enters the room in a suit. But a suit, I determine after closer inspection, he has owned for nineteen years and has not fit for fourteen of them. He looked like "a fat guy in a little suit." To make it worse, his jacket tears at the seam and my grandmother, in MacGyver-like fashion, repairs it with a stapler. A stapler, for cripes sake!

Long story short, my immediate family was way over-dressed. At the wedding ceremony alone, I spotted a baker's dozen of mullets, one child in a soccer uniform (including muddied cleats), and sunglasses one two different best men. But my cousin, the noble Groom, surpassed them all. The night before, for reasons "beyond" him, my cousin lost his tuxedo at/after the rehearsal dinner. As a replacement, my cousin rented a pin-striped black and white tuxedo that was entirely too large for his short and stocky frame. He stands at 5'6", and this tux would have fit Jordan like a gem. When standing straight up, the jacket sleeves went over his hands. Forgive me for saying this, but it was cute in that little-kid-is-dressed-up sorta way.

And that brings me to a larger discussion of my cousin's condition. In a word, he was wasted. Although I was not present the entire time, inside sources tell me he was drunk from 5:00 pm on Friday (start of the rehearsal dinner) to sometime early Sunday morning. Estimates placed his eventual passing out sometime around 7:00 am. I doubt the bride was in any condition to protest...