Outtake Articles: Weddings I

Okay, so I’ve got this weekend job I go on about, where a big old fancy house rents itself out to weddings and special events. I’m the super secret monitor/groundskeeper/toilet plungerer, and have been doing the job since 1993 (having started at the company in 91). During the weddings, I rip out my laptop and write half an article, then forget about it. As promised earlier today, I’m going to kill time and attempt to keep my brain from dying by posting the unfinished shit (after putting some finishing touches on it). Though, as I edit, I’m discovering that some of the articles are dated. They’re all written between January and April, so there’s some stuff that has filtered into articles that are currently live and… You don’t really care.

Here we go –

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Weddings I

(It looks like I wrote this one during a one-off special event last January.)

Lately, writing has been a bit difficult. For a long time, I felt like I was letting myself down. But, now, I’ve finally reached the age where I can create and stick with any excuse to avoid writing…which is a bit alarming, really, since I have no real professional aspirations.

When I was young, I didn’t really imagine myself as a 30-something. I had high hopes that I’d be dead by 25 because I’ve always known the sad truth about my life – I have no skills. Or, at least, no skills I’m interested in developing. I’m quite certain that I could learn and do pretty much anything I set my mind to… But I’ve never wanted to set my mind to anything. I always wanted to be a night watchman and a shut-in. For a few years, I wanted to be G.I. Joe. Not any particular Joe, just “G.I. Joe.” So I ended up with Halloween costumes that were just regular soldier outfits, like the Joe character Grunt, and would loudly insist that I was G.I. Joe. If I recall from the comics, Grunt also longed for the quiet life of a shut in. I think he got fucked up at some point…I don’t remember. All I remember is that Cobra Commander was an out of luck used car salesman, which was highly effective in cementing how evil he truly was. Then he got all weepy about his kid and got capped by a clone posing as a suburban yuppie who then assumed his identity. I think the original comics are all about America’s transition from the 70’s to the 80’s.

The new G.I. Joe comics currently in production are sort of the Alien 2 version of the franchise, I think. Suddenly you go from a cheery tale of misfits with family issues to straight-up action. Also, Scarlett’s been sexed up. Which is important, right? Sex?

Knowing that my life has pretty much steered the course through the liberal arts wasteland of middle-class Americanism, and that this destiny was no secret, I should be less concerned over the fact that I have to maintain a second job on the weekends. In fact, I shouldn’t bat an eye. The weekend job is simple – I “manage” a big, old house that rents itself out to weddings and other events. The house is a gazillion bedroom property sitting on a 40 acre wooded lot in the snootiest of snooty DC suburbs. It was built in the 1920’s, and designed by the guy who put together half of the old, non-phallic monuments in DC.

The job is fairly simple. I’m basically on hand to make sure the house doesn’t burn down. Fuse blows, go and fix it. Make sure the air conditioners or heaters are turned on and working. Change light bulbs, plunge out toilets, and sit in a dark room watching whatever arrived from Netflix the day before.

The wedding people – anywhere from 50 to 250 of them – go about their sad little business over a six hour block of time which, including setup and cleanup, is about a nine hour shift, for which I earn $20 an hour and whatever food/booze/young girls I can steal and defend from the far more corrupt and sticky-fingered caterers. Of course, the house has a full-time caretaking staff, and special weekend cleanup people, so there’s really not much for me to do except read books, watch movies, stare at blank pieces of paper thinking about blog entries, and get steadily drunk. All stuff I do every day, except not for $20 an hour.

So it’s a sweet job. But I hate losing the free days… Days I could spend in my boxers, sitting in my room, drinking vodka from early AM through the night, watching whatever it is that’s arrived in the mail or been downloaded. I have to sit here in a suit and tie and, worst of all, deal with people. I hate people.

My headquarters is in the air conditioned library, where my boss controls her little 40 acre empire throughout the week. I’m behind closed doors, often behind piles of booze and other supplies, and trying as hard as possible to keep away from everyone. But the library also features a lure for the general public — a stuffed bird collection that dates back to 1898. It’s a stunning collection, actually. An example of every American bird, stuffed and posed in 24 display cases. It includes a Bald eagle, a Golden Eagle, and the extinct Carrier Pigeon. Though most people I show it to haven’t heard of Carrier Pigeons. That’s because most of the people who come to weddings here are brain dead fuckheads. I’ve worked here since 1993, over 1000 weddings, and I’ve only seen three black couples get married here, and we had one Hindu wedding. All the rest of the folks are lily-white. That’s because an event here is pricey… Well, not as bad as most. It’s about five grand to rent the house. The big money goes to the caterers and equipment rental. We have an exclusive list of caterers who work with the property and they all make a mint. The bartenders make more working three weddings a weekend than I make in a month with both the weekend job and my normal job.

But that’s okay. What shocks me are the prices charged by the DJ’s. They’ll walk out of an event with a thousand bucks. Their job was to stick a mix CD of generic wedding music into the player and take a handful of requests. Then they eat the food, drink the booze, and come back into the little green room off of my office and bad mouth the client. The green room is what annoys me the most. Guests who come in to look at the birds aren’t too bad, and I play dumb so they get bored with me after a few minutes. They wander off because there’s a free bar and real people out in the main house. But the green room is divided from my office by a wall of crummy IKEA bookshelves. There’s a long table in there where they set up the slop bins for the musicians, the photographers, and whatever other professionals are on hand for the event. They sit in there and spew nothing but hatred for the caterers (who feed them and have to come in at the end of the event and spend 15 minutes cleaning up what is always a stunning mess) and go after the client. Office water cooler gossip — wedding style. After 14 years of listening to the conversations that go on behind those bookshelves, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the musicians — from DJ’s to string bands — are all so deeply twisted it would be merciful to just step over there and empty a pistol into their faces. But maybe I’m bitter.

I can’t blame them, really. The client is always an asshole. It’s a wedding, after all. A frenetic event where everything is going to go wrong… The bride and groom are in their zone, the parents only see how much money is flying out of their pockets, and the guests are all…well, guests. Guests are always a pain. Having to deal with so many people in such a confined space is something I don’t think I could handle. All those freelancer types have to assume that everybody they meet at an event is a potential customer. Me? I’m salaried, underpaid, and the definition of my job is to hide from view and make sure the basement isn’t flooding. And, even if it was, I just call the caretaker and whine until he shows up. Though our current caretaker knows his shit so, of course, nothing ever happens.

The job is greatly misunderstood, though. Both the guests and the caterers believe me to be more than I am. The guests, when they wander in to look at the birds, all seem to believe that I have three PhD’s in biology or whatever and the caterers think the world is aligned against them and only I can assist with simple things. Probably the best example of a simple thing involves opening the French doors off of the house’s great hall. Simple enough — door handle with the deadbolt just above it. But the combination seems to be a bit much for most caterers. Unlock it and turn the handle? Say it ain’t so! A caterer will rush in — no matter the problem, it’s always as if it’s a notch below global catastrophe — and tell me there’s a problem with the doors. I walk out there, turn the handle, open the door, and they act like I just rolled the stone from Christ’s tomb. At first, I thought this to be some sort of elaborate prank. It is, sadly, simple stupidity. I take particular pleasure in the fact that the caterer who has the most trouble with antique doors is called Windows.

It’d be much more amusing if they weren’t all total fuck ups serving hideous food every single time.