It is 90 degrees outside and heavy humidity soaks the air with water vapors so thick you can almost stick your toungue out and lick them. I am sitting on a brown folding chair in the middle of the street, staring at the blackening clouds and the brewing storm above. I feel really bad for the folks trying to prevent the chupah from collapsing in the pre-thunderstorm gales, but part of me is pumped for the madness that will follow if there happens to be a massive thunderstorm in the middle of an outdoors wedding- ooh maybe there will be hail and some lightning, one can only hope.
The crowds are begining to move away from the seating area and take up places under any object, trees, peoples porches, even a guy wielding a folding chair above his head- some people have retreated to the comfort of their cars. The cars are lined up in all directions- kind of looks like a Chasidishe Drive in. I can only imagine what this seen looked like to the summer residents of the nearby frat houses. I can imagine some guy wandering out from bed half naked and hungover to find that either apocolypse has come or some wierd nation has taken over his street and is dueling it out.
Unfortunately more white outfits werent present- then the rain would have made it even more interesting. I am sitting in the drizzle, one of the last people to run for cover, wondering how fast a gust of wind must be to blow a sheitle off? Do the sheitle machers have a sheitle accelerator where they test wind speeds on different sheitles and rate them for different use in different environments. Shetles are kind of like tires after all. Maybe a Miami sheitle can withstand higher gusts than a Brooklyn sheitle or maybe the Seattle sheitles have water proof scalps. I constantly see men running down the street chasing a runaway yarmulke or hat, but never do you see a women chasing a sheitle. Maybe the profit on sheitle’s compared to hats and yarmulke’s is so much higher and allows them to invest more in R&D.
The rain came but only for about two minutes- Im sure the bride in her white outfit was very happy- talk about wet T-shirt contests, imagine a wet wedding gown contest, hmm. Off top the main meal we go imagining what sort of seltzer and pickle tray they will have to start the meal off with, will they have half sour pickles as well? Will they have those soft chewy rolls or those crunchy ones that break into 3 million peices when you bite into them?
These Lubavitcher girls are hot, I say to my friend and his parents. We then try to come up with pickup lines for Luibavitchers, “hey do you think the Rebbe is still alive”?, or “Yichee”?, we decide to forgo the picup lines and chow down.
Lubavitch weddings prove to all why the social fabric of Yiddishkeit is disrupted when Jewish geography cannot be played. Everything flips upside down and akward silence and shifting nervously waiting for the salmon with dill sauce becomes unbearable. Sitting at my table is me and my good freinds bro, a rather frummy looking could be Luby could be a snag(misnaged) kind of guy. A professional nerd who looks like he has played video games and snorted rittalin for a good portion of his life, clad in a silky yellow shirt and a purple cloth yarmulke- obviously on his way to becoming frum- but may never make it. Then we have a hardcore half grown in beard, crushed hat Luby.
You see Lubavitch geography is not interesting since they all marry in- its kind of like Alabama, everyone not only knows each other, they are all related, whats the fun in that? Normal yeshiva world,Modern Orthodox geography is more inetesrting because you never know which moishe, or yanky, or chayala you may know.
This mix of different folks on my table leads to akward silence, even more so because no one besides me was enjoying their fruit cup in the margarita glass with the slice of lime and quite little umbrellas. I had about 4 of them before anyone spoke a word. The yellow shirt nerdy boy turns top the questionable Luby and asks him where he’s from? England- end of conversation- Nerdy boy stares off into the distance thinking of what to say, I slurp down another fruit cup and start ranting about the unique flavor of watermellon strawberry fruit cups. Nerdy boy is back, I can see his vioce box getting ready for the kill, thinking he has the question that will get the ball rolling and quicken the time between the fruit cup and the unforseen next course, he casts his line out. So is the Jewish community large in Manchester? Yes it is- the end. Nerdy boy is finished, yet if we could have entered Jewish geography into this situation the conversation would have lasted at least 5 minutes, or maybe even some torah could have been spoken, but no, nerdy boy has sunk his own ship.
Remember when all frummies dressed their kids alike? Yes in some circles they still do, but it was more of a 90’s style, well there are 4 kids running around in white tuxedo’s. Way cooler then the sailor suits I think as my stomach begs me not to down a nother fruit cup- the brain is arguing saying that the next course is taking too long.
The bathrooms require completion of a corn maze to actually get to the urinal area. How are 300 drunken Lubabs going to get through the two doors and maze required to get to the makeshift vomitorium eh, I wonder this to myself as my liver gratefully releases some of the 5 fruit cups backed up in my system.
The wedding is starting to reach a mid level leybadick level. I am quite suprised at this since my last Lubavicth event consisted of stacks of passed out Lubies on the table at 770 still trying to eck out one more shot of Smiranoff or bowl of chulent before they were carted off to bed. Where are the strange half bearded men wielding those big huge jugs of Smiranoff that they so truly enjoy, where are the flying crushed hats and swinging children? Lame would not be fair, but this was far from the madness of 770 and other Luby events. My attention shifted to the current alcohol situation. Each table was ladden with two bottles of the second Luby wine of choice- Joyvin- Where was the Kesser I thought, that sweet red albeit cheap yet satsifying wine that adorned Lubavitch tables everywhere. Better yet where was the Vodka- the Lubavicth spring water. I understood now, take the alcohol away from Lubies and they are just like all the snags, dull and boring, and trying to compensate for the usual mayhem with yiddish singing by pre-pubescent boys and table dancing while waving napkins in the air. Unimpressed with the madness, I evntured back to my table to find the most amazing thing staring back at me.
While I had danced, checked out the hot lubavtcher chicks on the other side of the mechitza and complained about the lack of alcohol to lube up the Lubies, my meal had arrived. Oh how joyous it is to come back and not have to sit in akward silence while staring off into space and trying to catch other people trying to pick their noses secertly.
Snow peas with slices of red pepper, tossed with sesseme seeds. Grilled chicken with the skin, and red potatoes. Simple yet suprisingly staisfying. Another glance around the room reveals the diversity of this crowd. 2 Girls from the university with many piercings and colored hair mingle with yiddishe mamala’s with their turbans covering their shaved heads. Old men in purple cloth yarmulke’s talk with Jolly Chabbad Shlichim. Ah the joy of a non-black and white wedding.
I suddenly have the urge to scream Mendel into a crowd of children, wondering if massive confusion will follow as every adult and child turns around at my command- the power contained within that name. Its funny because regular old frummies stick out like sore thumbs at these events- you can see them a mile away. From the corner of my eye I can see another high fructose nightmare staring at me- on the other end of my table sits a virgin fruitcup, its sugar coated margarita glass, and glistening slice of lime, sit their waiting for my command. Dont do it Hesh, but its so good, and I will wish I had it in an hour. Dude, what if you cant figure oput the corn maze when your bowels start screaming at you damning you to explaining your sudden departure from the meal and the smell eminating from your chair as mere coincidence.
The desert is a classic frummy affair. Some caterer thinks he’s going to try and be cool and do something different. This never works as in this case. Baked pears with orange sorbet, c’mon man, what kind of combo is that. A sea of uneaten pears appears on every table. I actually liked the pears, but I am wierd.
The moral of the story is: never eat more then 5 of the first course no matter what it is.