With the exception of a few of his closest friends, with whom he had kept in contact after graduation, I was meeting most of these people for the first time. While I sat enjoying a conversation with one group of people, Dilf excused himself to mingle with others he hadn't seen in a while.
In the midst of my talking and laughing at a table, the guy I had been sitting next to at dinner pulled his chair alongside mine and muttered confidentially to me, "Doesn't that bother you?"
"What?" I asked, thinking my champagned-dulled senses had allowed a shard of glass to become embedded in my flesh somewhere, unbeknownst to me. "That," he asked, pointing to my husband, who was talking to the maid of honor.
"Uh, no?" I replied. "Why would it?"
"You mean..." he said, lowering his voice even further and leaning in towards me conspiratorially, "He never mentioned her to you?" He asked, his tone suggesting none-too-subtly that Dilf was hiding something from me.
"He didn't tell you about their... hissssstory?"
At this point, his eyes may have turned red and into reptilian slits, his tongue may have become forked, and horns may have sprouted from his head. I wouldn't know, becaus
e I wasn't looking at him. I wanted him to go as far away from me as possible, because he clearly was in league with the powers of evil. Yet, despite the look of disgust that must've been on my face (I never did have a poker face), he kept talking!I don't recall the exact words at this point, but the message was that Dilf and this lady had some sort of unexplored, unfulfilled mutual longing that they never quite managed to consummate in high school, but that it certainly appeared that Dilf was trying to close the deal at this wedding reception. (Clearly, this man didn't realize that not only does Dilf not "close deals," he doesn't work them up in the first place. He obviously wasn't there when Dilf and I met, and my eyelash-fluttering, purring flirtations caused him to stammer and flee in terror. But I digress...)
Nothing came of this asshole's attempt to sour my evening, or my relationship with Dilf. In fact, I caught the bouquet that night, Dilf was delighted, and for once the superstition rang true -- we were married about a year later.
But this creature's hideous dynamite stack had a long fuse. Fast forward 11 1/2 years, with Dilf and I living a long-distance marriage where we only see each other on weekends, and me with two kids and the body to prove it, and feeling like the world is passing me by as I focus on hearth and home -- well, my vulnerability level is a bit different.
So when Dilf is being sent to L.A., his least favorite city on the planet (No offense, Miss Kendra), and wants to meet up with this accomplished, attractive woman just so he isn't the troubled loner sitting at the bar by himself as he usually is when he travels, what normally wouldn't bother me suddenly does. And I think about all those letters to Dear Abby and Ask Amy that start out, "I didn't mean for this to happen when I looked up my old friend from high school..." And then I also have the stomach flu, and am sitting on the bathroom floor in my hoodie and flannel pajama pants with my hair pulled back in an elastic headband, feeling miserable and sorry for myself...
So, thank you Mr. Evil Guy From the Wedding. Thank you for making life just a little bit more awful for some people who never did a thing to you.
It may not come as a surprise to know that this guy is/was some sort of Republican political figure in the Chicago suburbs. I'm sure he's working his magic in any number of election campaigns as we speak.
