Planning a wedding scam

I never really had much interest in gay marriage. But during this year’s Pride Week launch at City Hall, I found myself suddenly quite moved by the issue.

Svend Robinson was giving a tear-inducing speech, the gay youth choir was singing and while cameras snapped away, couples got married on the rainbow-painted concrete steps.

Perhaps it was just PMS, but I suddenly found myself all misty and motivated over marriage. I felt the urge to get really, really gay all of the sudden. I wanted to wrap myself up in a big rainbow flag, grab Tim Stevenson and the nearest Birkenstock-wearing woman I could find and get myself hitched.

Of course, an hour later I would have been mortified at what I’d done and had the marriage annulled. The next day, my mug would appear on the cover of The Province with the headline: See, Gays Don’t Really Want Marriage! I’d try to explain that I just got swept up in the whole thing, that it was an impulse purchase of sorts. It would look really bad for the gays. Thankfully, once I’d left City Hall, the urge passed. But it was a close one.

The whole scary episode got me wondering if others are innocently stepping on the banana peel of gay marriage and finding themselves united ’til death do they part. The couples you see on the news always seem to have been together for decades and are now finally having their union recognized by the state.

But what about the others? What about the bandwagoners who are prone to jumping on the latest thing without really thinking it through? You can spot them easily; they’re the white folks with the Asian characters tattooed on their lower backs with no idea what they mean. They’re the ones with floppy earlobes from getting massive circles of steel forced through their flesh then regretting it. Now they also have a wife or a husband. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess maybe as far as rash decisions go, love is not such a bad motivator.

I am thinking about getting married. Not for love. I just need some stuff. Do you know how much stuff people give you when you get married? Seriously, it’s unbelievable! The problem is how to get the gifts without having to actually get married. Ever the schemer, I think I’ve come up with it.

I’ll plan myself a wedding. I’ll just be somewhat vague about the whole wife part of it. I’ll register for all the things I need; a new couch, a wok, a plasma screen TV. Wait, can you register for a bus pass? I wonder if the phone company has a wedding registry service. Must look into it.

As I understand it, people buy you things before your wedding. How great is that? So basically, I’d just have to fake it until my new iMac arrives and then call the whole shebang off.

But then I would miss the second best part of getting married; the food. Okay, I suppose I’ll have to actually go through with the wedding. However, all kinds of couples are throwing tradition to the wind and having unique weddings these days, so I guess I could do the same. It is the most important day in a girl’s, life after all. She should have what she wants.

So that settles it; we’ll have the reception first and I’ll just duck out before the ceremony starts. I’m not talking about one of those receptions where everyone fights over a few chicken skewers and a cantaloupe either. It’ll be a full sit-down dinner with an open bar and dessert for days. I’ll sit at the head table in my frouffy white dress-you didn’t think I’d pass up the opportunity to wear a fairy princess dress, did you?-and eat my own weight in catering while consuming mass quantities of wine.

If any Nosy Parkers try to question where my mate is, I’ll just keep saying: “She’ll be here any minute now. You’re going to love her!” I figure that if the food is good enough and the booze is free enough, people won’t care.

After a rousing round of YMCA and perhaps another pass at the dessert table I’ll slip out the back door and off on my honeymoon. Surely, my friends and family won’t begrudge me a trip to the Bahamas after I’ve been so tragically left at the altar.

By the time I return home from my trip, tanned and almost fully recovered from my loss, but still breaking into hysterical sobs if ever anyone brings up the subject of “her”, my dining room set and the pink retro blender will have arrived. If anyone cottons on to my scam and dares to confront me I’ll just start hollering about “my rights” and threatening to report them to Amnesty International or something.

Yes, brothers and sisters, our day has finally come! No longer will we be kept down by a society that does not recognize our love. We now have equal rights and no one will ever deny us our queen-sized Ralph Lauren duvet cover with matching pillow shams and bed skirt ever again.

I think I’m going to like married life.

There’s still time to catch Morgan in her one-woman show, Girls Like Me, at the Fringe Festival.