Somewhere between the kidnapping that happened on August 20th and the wedding that happened on September 10th, my body began to betray me.

Perhaps it was something that I picked up at the macabre display of carnivalish body parts that we saw at Body Works, perhaps it was something that I got from one of the many wedding vendors that I had to sign over my organs and promises of my second born son. Maybe it was some combination of all of it.

I can’t be certain.

Between the horrible mutant fever bug that made The Benner spew The Exorcist-style chunks all over my living room and, well, anything else in his path while running a fever so high that had me running him to the ER and all the last minute, “I owe you an extra three thousand for what exactly?” Somewhere along those lines a mutant bug so big and so bad began brewing inside of me.

By the time September 10th, the day that I promised to Love, Honor and Repay The Daver, rolled around, I was already so sick that I could hardly stand up. It was a mixture of sheer willpower and adrenaline that got me through the day.

It looks like, though, that my wedding guests got a little something extra besides the candles and amazing tapas and all the sangria they could possibly drink. It looks like I was Person A.

Typhoid Becky.

Apparently I infected all of my wedding party, a good portion of the guests, and THEN, in the spirit of all things wedding-y, I got on an airplane. Well, no. Thanks to the good people at Delta, I got onto 5! airplanes. 4 cities.

Then I flew somewhere tropical.

You’re welcome.

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

-Pablo Neruda

In four days, the two shall become one, or something like that. So here we are, posting as one.

Aunt Becky has been running herself ragged getting everything done for this wedding, because I don’t do anything for silly things like weddings. I prefer to focus my energies on my online girlfriends and computer-related foibles. I do this because you can’t hear online girlfriends queef.

It’s interesting that Powdered Gay Man or whomever DAVE would like to be would say something about weddings. See, hear me out, I didn’t want a wedding. No, no, in every OTHER man’s romantic life, I would be the most simple, kindest of women, because MY idea of romance is a short flight to Vegas away. I’ve not even BEGUN to understand why on earth ANYONE would want to spring such money for one single day. And honey, we will NEVER be “one.”

Hey, I offered a Vegas trip. I wanted to be married by Elvis. Of course, the ceremony would have to happen in true Road Trip fashion, the only TRUE way a Vegas wedding should be: Skydiving. That’s right. You, me, and the King with parachutes flapping open in the breeze, saying our vows in just enough time before having to pull that cord and land back on earth, joined in wedded bliss. But as much as my love SAYS she wants a Vegas wedding, this small little request was returned to sender. Denied. Kaboshed. And honey, we’re ALREADY one. We just don’t have the rings on yet.

I did quite appreciate the Vegas offering, I did. Let me set this record straight once and for all, though. You ONLY offered this trip AFTER I said that I would go skydiving, and I quote myself here,”when it becomes socially acceptable to shit my own pants.” YOU didn’t think that having my pants filled with dookie would be “romantic” or “sensual.”

You forget, my love, that I offered to clean those soiled drawers for you myself. With my own tongue. And on top of that, this is what Depends are for. You’ll never remember the dookie in the drawers, what you’ll remember is the love in the air. Besides, no one will smell it at 20,000 feet or so, in free-fall, you’re ALWAYS upwind.

See, honey-muffin, here’s where you’re lying to yourself, and to me AND TO THE INTERNET. Now I know FOR A FACT, that had you ACTUALLY offered to “eat my shit,” literally this time, I would have been more than happy to oblige you. I’ve been waiting to see something like that happen for AGES. No, this whole elaborate wedding is your fault, as are natural disasters, the fact that my closet doesn’t have enough purses, AND soaring gas prices. P.S. There is no one. The computers must count for SOMETHING.

It’s no lie. I mean, I may have been a bit, y’know, *figurative* about the actual “eating” part, but no, I’d have cleaned you up nice afterward. Instead, now, we’ve got all these people coming into town, an oncoming bar tab the size of China, cute-ass little place cards, and even some minor family drama. P.S. I’m sorry about the gas prices, but baby, your closet has so many purses that we don’t need to buy luggage for our honeymoon. We can just fill up the purses and carry ’em on.

God Bless America, and God Bless YOU, Dave. You have SO MUCH to learn about purses. I’ll teach you ALL about it after the honeymoon.

Oh baby, I can hardly wait. Maybe someday SOME day, I’ll have a purse of my very own in my closet. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The purse in your closet, honey, is actually called “spillover.”

We need a bigger house.

We need wealthy benefactors.

Now THERE is a brilliant idea. This is why I love you. Benefactors? You out there? Show us some love. W’re buying 160 people dinner on Saturday.
Give us the hookup!

You’re shameless.*I* was going to have a”love child” with an old, old, rich oil tycoon.

And you scrapped that brilliant plan just to marry me?

There are still four days left for me to change my mind.

There you have it, kind readers. True love.

Happy Fourth Birthday, Benner. Without you, I would be nothing. Someday, maybe I will explain why today was such a pivotal, important, terrible awful day. But for now, let me just say that I love you more than anything and I’m sorry and I hope that the McDonald’s and the ice cream cake that I had The Daver run out to get make it special.

Happy Number Four, baby boy. I’m so proud to be your mom. You make me so, so proud.

For as long as I can remember, I have made jokes about being t-bagged because it’s just such a ridiculous thing. My male friends in high school–The Metal Heads–were always going back and forth with me, joking that they were going to put their balls on my face. It wasn’t a serious thing and I don’t think anyone actually wanted to do it.

Well, maybe they did, but probably just to get me to shutthefuckup. I mean, wouldn’t you?

But no one took me up on that. Well, until the smokin’-hott stripper for my bachelorette party showed up.

Now he was a surprise to me, one that I had a mere 2 hours to psych myself up for. I had expected a stripper that is hired totally last minute would be nasty; a filthy 50 year old man with chest and back hair, and a belly like Danny Devito. Or someone akin to Cletus the slack-jawed yokel, red mullet and dangly ball bag. I dunno.

But dude. NO. He was actually hot.

Without rocking any sort of buzz, I was reduced to a gooey giggly mess of bride-to-be, for all of my friends to see. Because what else can you do when a naked hot dude starts rubbing his junk all up on you but laugh your ass off?

And then, in the midst of the humping, and the mock muff-diving, he climbed up on me and put his balls on my face. Rubbed his balls on my face. For what seemed like hours. I was suffocating in the fumes and enormity of it all.

His balls, my face, all in front of my friends. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I think I did both. I wept into his ball bag until he finally pulled his sac off of me and I could breathe again. Never has air tasted so good.

Next time I get married, I am SO eloping.

I would like to make a list of the various things I would do if I ever acquired a penis of my own.

1. Mushroom Printing. I would love, Love, LOVE to dick-smack some chick with my penis. Over and over, and over again, until the imprint of my mushroom tip is imprinted onto her face. Don’t ask me why this appeals to me because I’m not all anti-woman, but it does.

2. Write my name in pee in the snow. Now I have heard from many a man that this is much, much harder than it seems, something about bladder control and the whatnot, but I think that a yellow cursive “Becky” would make my heart sing.

3. Have sex with a woman. Having only ever been a “catcher” in the bedroom (or any other room, really), I have never been able to conjure up in my mind what having sex with a gaping hole is really like. Don’t offer up a dildo to me, I want the real thing, mister.

4. Pee standing up. Now for someone like me, who has gone camping any number of times AND was born with a squirrel sized bladder, I have pissed on myself and my clothes more often than I’d like to admit to. I would enjoy tremendously nothing more than being able to whip it out and piss where I damn want to.

5. Jump up and down naked with an erection. Because, really, I want to see if it feels as funny as it looks.

6. Teach my penis to dance to a Madonna song. I have never, ever been able to convince someone ELSE with a penis to do this, and I imagine it would be the funniest thing. Ever.

7. Exit a restaurant bathroom with my penis hanging out, but the top of my pants buttoned. Now, I don’t mean that I’d actually ZIP my pants up ala Something About Mary, but moreover “forget” to tuck my willie back into my shorts. Hilarious.

8. Scratch my balls- because, OBVIOUSLY.

9. Wake up with Morning Wood. I want to know what it’s like to wake up with a drippy wet penis.

10. Have my balls licked. I need to have someone lick the chicken-skin of my balls and report back what it feels like.

There it is, folks, the reason that each of you have patronized our joint blogging venture for a year. Because we are not afraid in the least bit to go where no one EVER wants to go. But I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.

I was a sickly kid. Had I been born before the invention of antibiotics, I would have bit the bucket before my first birthday, not a doubt in my mind. Modern medicine saved my dimply ass more times than I could ever possibly count, but even still I was out of school more than I was in it. And while it SOUNDS kinda cool when you think about it really, it sucked ass.

When I was 14, I begged my doctor to take out my tonsils after I realized that they now had holes and craters in them where stuff was getting caught that I had to fish out. Which, hi, EW.

The surgery was a nightmare because my tonsils, having been used and abused by so many bugs for so many years had, for lack of a better word, rotted. LET THIS BE A WARNING TO YOU, PARENTS OUT THERE WHOSE PHYSICIANS TELL YOU TO TAKE OUT YOUR KIDS TONSILS: DO IT!

While the surgeon was in there, he niftily removed my adenoids too, because, well, why not?

What he never bothered to tell me, and what I didn’t realize until months later is that now I had no barrier between my mouth and my nose. At the wrong angle, let’s say a drinking fountain, water would simply pour from my mouth and out my nose.

It’s a charming party trick.

Having NO adenoids has made oral sex most irritating to perform, although now that I think of it, I bet there’s an untapped goldmine market for porn out there.

Nose Porn.

HOT.

Some people keep pets to protect themselves and their families from the gamut of intruders, burglars, murderers, and rapists that regularly prey on innocent people. Because they’re always talking about that on the local Fear Segment of the news, so it must be true.

Dogs are a common favorite for this. My brother, for example, trained his German Shepard to attack me whenever I walked into the house. There is no love lost between us, obviously.

My parents have 2 large dogs that alert them when: a) Someone is approaching the house b)Another animal is approaching the house or c) a squirrel farts down the block. It’s actually quite tedious to live with if, you know, you ever want to sleep or study or talk on the phone.

I’ve HEARD of people having cats that do similar things, you know, meowing and hissing whenever someone new comes over. My own cats would NEVER do anything of the sort because they are much more concerned with napping or licking their own assholes. Although Finnegan, my 25 pound cat we call “The Deer Hunter” may attack someone carrying in a cheeseburger or spinach salad, but only so he could eat some of it.

Who am I kidding, he’d eat ALL OF IT.

Apparently, over at Casa de la Sausage, we have inadvertently developed a new hybrid of attack-critters. A nest of wasps decided that our back porch was the perfect spot for a summer home. We cohabitated quite well until this morning, when I was ruthlessly attacked by the mess of wasps.

I guess that wasps are too stupid to train to attack “undesirables,” despite my sorted efforts, which mainly consisted of putting pictures of Pashmina out by the hive and chanting “attack the beast” over and over.

So now, in a haze of insecticide, my porch rests.

Peacefully, even.

Like the 25-year old adult that I have freakishly become, I celebrated college graduation AND passing of the Nursing Boards by committing to a surprisingly adult job. I know. I KNOW.

I must admit that my job hunting, unlike my English Major cohorts, I have been blessed to enter into my chosen (for the VERY short-term) a field that is interested in 3 main criteria:

1. A CPR/ACLS card
2. A License
3. A Warm Body

It’s nice in one sense, as I have my pick of positions at any number of hospitals, kick-ass benefits, and shifts. It is, however, decidedly unflattering, in the way that you don’t actually get picked on merit or awards, more on pulse and respirations. If you’re a warm-ish body, you’re pretty much hired.

This has been one of two weeks of orientation that I have had to undergo and I’m stuck in a room with 40 people who are so toothfully chipper and GO NURSING that it almost makes me ashamed and embarrassed. Not one of them knows that I’m really not looking forward to getting onto the floor and wiping asses and taking shit from people. They’ve all been waiting years for this day and I would rather be applying latex paint to a house with my tongue.

I’m trying to be optimistic about the next week as it will be one of the only times that we get a free lunch and more or less free reign over what we do. I do not scoff at free lunches. The size of my ass should tell you that.

So, for eight hours every day I am forced to sit through lecture upon lecture from EVERY department in the hospital because they’re still dating us right now and trying to woo us and make us take off our panties so that we can go all the way with them. I don’t mind being wooed. I do mind that we’re about to be butt-raped, but that’s neither here nor there.

Of the more interesting things that I’ve learned is this: If you’re at work and you accidentally run into your co-worker who is carrying a sheet of glass and you cut yourself, and he picks up the pieces of broken glass covered in your blood, he SHOULD NOT stick the bloody glass in his eyes.

I am very glad that they cleared that up for me because I had spent most of the week before that wondering about that exact same scenario. It’s like the hospital is psychic or something.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off too find some glass to break before I have to listen to a scintillating lecture about what Laundry Services does. It’s certain to be a nail biter.

I got my first tattoo almost three years ago for my 22nd birthday. It’s a gecko that takes up most of my right foot, very niftily colored and adorable and he’s there to remind me to always be true to myself which is something that I had to learn the hard way.

Location was key because I needed to be able to hide it. I have enough foresight to know that in 50 years, getting “I HEART KURT COBAIN” on my boob probably wouldn’t be a huge hit at the rest home and might require a little explaining on my wedding day, so the foot it was.

It hurt like a motherfucker. Of course it did. For weeks.

To celebrate becoming Aunt Becky, RN, BSN, I decided to do something special for myself because what I just did–graduate school after completely flipping around my educational dreams and desires and change career paths entirely–that’s a Big Fucking Deal. It needed to be commemorated with something more than a haircut or a purse.

My other foot is now the proud new owner of a throbbing swollen foot covered by a large, pink tattooed seahorse.

It’s the other lesson I want to remember with The Wedding That Ate My Life looming just around the corner: I can always make it on my own.

Always.