A POST-MORTEM FOR KIM ON HER WEDDING DAY
Actually written several years after Chris and Kim got married. If memory serves, they had come down to Charlotte for Thanksgiving (or something) and they were at my parents house with myself and Rachelle, celebrating my birthday. Well, as it often does when Kim is around, the subject of conversation eventually turned to the matter of male strippers and where they may be found, and before too long she was going about describing the night before the wedding.
To call it a "Bachelorette Party" would be to give the thing too much credit. Suffice it to say that Kim's friends, John and Melanie, took her to Athens House(which, it will be noted, is NOT a strip joint), and kept re-filling her glass with whatever-- wine, Long Island iced tea, vodka, whatever, to the point that, eventually, Kim could no longer identify the liquids. Kim got so hammered that, the next day, by the time the ceremony rolled 'round, she was not simply hungover, but rather blazingly drunk. Chris was actually concerned that she might pass out before the ceremony.(And this whole time I thought she was just nervous and excited.)To make matters worse, prior to the ceremony, fairly reeking of cheap booze and Marlboro Lights, she ran into one of her tee-totalling Southern Baptist grandmothers, who clearly sensed something was amiss, but, blessedly, failed to identify the malady.
I wrote the piece itself some time after that, although I can't say when because I can't place the typeface of the typewriter it was written on. (If I could do that, I could approximately date it based on which machines I had access to at what times. Archaic, no?)
I used to claim that Kim and Chris might never have met were he and I not friends, but in fact we were all part of a large circle of friends at UNCC in the late 80's. I did meet Kim before I met Chris; I did make a pass (at least) at Kim before she met Chris. She did almost (I think) take me up on it once. But after they announced they were engaged... Actually, we all thought they were kidding when they first announced it. It took about a month or two to sink in. And then, even still, Kim would flirt with, well, anything. And to this day, she'll still make innuendo in absolutely ANY company. Saucy little tart...