Thinking Out Loud
By
Gerard Meister
By this time, except for possibly a few camel traders in the Gobi desert, everyone on our planet has heard of Jennifer Wilbanks, the run away bride, and her faithful, almost too-good-to-be true boyfriend, John Mason. But while psychologists, marriage counselors, clergymen and pundits the world over have been offering a stream of Freudian reasons for the bride’s conduct: she was too nervous; she loved someone else; she just wasn’t ready to get married; and on and on far into the night; but nothing that I heard rang a bell.
I just knew there was a story here somewhere, something all the so-called experts overlooked. Now I’m no Dan Rather and I don’t write for Newsweek either, so when I go after a story I try to dig out the simple truth of the matter, and, as I learned from my years as a journalist, things that do not involve either George W. Bush or the U.S. Senate are never terribly complicated. “Look for something simple,” is how I instructed my team of investigative reporters when I sent them to snoop around the Wilbank’s hometown in Georgia. After only a few weeks of nosing about my crack team of newshounds struck pay dirt, and will you be surprised: it’s was the wedding list that sent the bride off and running.
Everyone knows the infernal complexity of making seating arrangements for a wedding party of, say, 100 or 130 guests, but six hundred – impossible, that’s enough to cross a rabbi’s eyes. Here is how the scenario played out:
“Honey, your mother-in law called and said that you can’t possible seat Mae Mason at the Fairchild’s table.”
“Who’s Mae Mason again, I forgot?”
“She’s John’s first cousin, once removed on his father’s side.”
“Oh yes, I remember now. She’s a widow and, you know, we have sixty tables of ten each – which took me over a year to work out, by the way – so I had to put her with an odd number, otherwise I would go bananas.”
“I understand darling, but why the Fairchild’s. They’re still upset with Mae’s voting for Wendel Wilkie. Maybe you can put her at one of the singles’ tables, you have over thirty of them, don’t you?”
“Yes mom, it’s thirty-four actually, but give me a break that woman’s been single since 1949.”
“Well, try to figure something out darling, it’s important – the wedding’s next week.”
“Okay, okay – I’ll try to think of something, but first I have to clear my head. I’ll go out for a jog, be right back.”
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