Serenity Now!

"I can't wait until this is over," I've found myself saying recently.  We've been so caught up in finalizing details that the present has become a blur.  I have wedding on the brain and barely ten minutes goes by without it somehow creeping into my consciousness, so it seemed only natural that I started seeking relief in the future.  

"How?" you ask?  Well, a few weeks back I started visiting the websites of the hotels we plan to stay at in Bali.  Picturing Erica and myself near the ocean, the mountains, and in the lounge chairs with ice cold drinks, was a little slice of mental heaven.  Every time I clicked on one of their pages I felt like saying, “Calgon, take me away.” Unfortunately, I visited the sites so often that looking at the pictures suddenly became as enticing as looking at the wall of my cubicle.  The mountains and the beach were no longer enough.  I tried counting backwards from ten, and I tried screaming “Serenity now!” like Frank Costanza, but nothing seemed to help. 

On Sunday morning, though, I thought my prayers had been answered.  Erica had her bachelorette party on Saturday night, and when she woke up, she began to tell me the story of how it unfolded. It all started with a scavenger hunt, and one of their first stops was a store called Ricky’s.  At the store, the girls were given ten dollars and ten minutes to buy something for Erica to use on our honeymoon.  Ricky's, in case you were wondering, has not a single product that could do anything to enrich our enjoyment of Balinese cultural heritage.

I saw some pink, lacy things peeking out from the top of the bag, and like I said, I thought my prayers had been answered. I figured that if looking at photos of saltwater pools were no longer able to bring me moments of mental relaxation, certainly imagining Erica in said pools with any of the undoubtedly titillating things she was about to pull from the Ricky's bag, would do the trick.  But you know me, I wanted to play it cool.  “So, what’s in the bag?” I asked casually.

She fished around for a moment, apparently wanting to find the right item to reveal first, and then pulled out something called a “love mask.”  I’ve never understood how just because something is red and soft that automatically qualifies to have the adjective “love” attached to it.  It’s a blindfold, isn’t it?  “Love masks” sound like they should be used in  ancient tribal rituals – but then again, maybe those rituals take place in Bali, so I decided to withhold any comments. 

The next thing I knew Erica threw me a small package that turned out to be “pleasure tape.”  I started to make a comment about how kinky her friends were, but any and all thoughts of enjoyment went out the window when I realized that this “pleasure tape” looked exactly like the stuff I used to put on the grip of my tennis racket.  I told her as much and was admonished for not getting into the spirit of things.

“What else ya got?”  Gummi-panties!  Oh good lord.  They looked to be the equivalent of about forty or fifty Gummi-bears – can you think of anything more repulsive?  I get nauseous after eating any more than seven* .  This was not going as I had hoped.  Whereas five minutes earlier I was envisioning the possibility of Erica wearing several sexy things, I was now thinking about tennis and barfing.  All of a sudden, that saltwater pool – the empty version – was looking a lot more appealing.

In successive order, Erica then handed me a set of pasties (burlesque hasn’t been sexy since the 1930s), a lacy pink skirt that looked like a tutu, and the big winner, a bottle of something called Sexo.  I honestly had no idea what it was.  There were no instructions – just a picture of a jalapeno.  Is it a lube of some sort?  Body oil?  And if so, is there capsaicin in it?  Because that stuff stings!  

Thankfully that was the end of the gifts, because I was getting more turned off by the moment.  The contents of this bag were not what I’d hoped for.  But then, I thought, what was it that I was really hoping for?  Thinking about the honeymoon – even with Erica in various states of sexy repose – only gets me so far, and I realized that looking to the future for relief from the present is not the answer.

I began thinking about what my dad told me, that I should enjoy this time because it’s a happy one, and it only happens once.  It’s a nice sentiment but harder to practice than to preach.  Although, once the shock of those gifts wore off, Erica and I started cracking jokes about them, and suddenly, there we were having a nice, relaxing Sunday morning, laughing about her bachelorette party, and gasp, enjoying ourselves.  

I don’t want to be overly dramatic, either.  It’s a wonderful thing that we’re doing – it’s just that sometimes the stress of the preparations get the better of me.  We only have a few weeks to go, so I will try to heed my dad’s advice and enjoy what’s left of the process.  And when I do get stressed out, I probably won’t be visiting any more hotel websites, lest my mind return to thoughts of tennis and barfing.  How will I cope?  I’m not sure.  But if you hear someone screaming “Serenity now!” at the top of their lungs, don’t worry, it’s probably just me.



* Just an estimate.  I have never actually counted how many Gummi-bears it takes to make me nauseous.