Fucking weddings have gotten even more complicated. Now you have to have a website with invitations, RSVP’s, maps, shit to do, the mandatory shopping lists (registry) and the obligatory “Our Story.”

Somehow it became my job to review my son’s website and send him feedback and corrections (thanks to the project management skills of the wife). Mostly around “Our Story,” because his story is not as good as his cousin’s (who just got married Sept. 29).

“That’s how I got through high school,” the Boy told the wife. “I’d just enter a few sentences and hand the computer to dad — easy A.”

He’s 32. Fuck that. If he wants me to write his website, just give me the keys and let me fill it out like this bullshit site. That will cut down on the RSVP’s and bar bill. At least it will have many more cuss words than his cousin.

But they wouldn’t do that – so I put this bullshit together instead.

Here’s what the boy wrote in “Our Story.”

Met each other….Eventually dated…Got a dog and bought a house…Marriage

-Shaun

Factually correct. Incredibly boring.

Here’s how I remember it.

He was flying from Mesa, Az to San Francisco to dress up like Santa for the weekend. Because all douchebag millennials refuse to grow up and will remain giant children for a century. She had taken the same flight a few days before… more on that later.

I was the unofficial (and unpaid Uber) to get him to “Mesa Gateway Airport” (the former Williams Air Force Base) and his discount airline. Cheap bastard. If he flew out of a real airport on a real airline none of this would have happened.

Dropped him off sometime around sundown. I got a call just as I was going to bed. Flight delayed. Could I pick up him and go get something to eat?

I strongly considered saying no. But I was hungry, and if I was with him, I could get a couple of drinks without the insipid accusations of alcoholism from the wife.

We were the last two customers at Joe’s Farm Grill that night. They had turned the grill off, but the beer was colder than the December night and the sandwiches were still good. I paid, of course.

Dropped him back at the Air Force base, I mean airport, in what felt like the middle of the night. Just as I was pulling onto the road home, my phone rang. Flight delayed again. Could I come get him?

“No.”

After he got back from playing Santa in San Fran, he told me the story.

Forced to buy his own drinks in the airport bar, he overheard a few women talking about getting from the SF airport to Santa-Con.

“If we share an Uber there, I’ll pay for the Uber back,” the Boy interrupted in his creepy yet charming way of leaning into other people’s conversations.

Free ride downtown for him, and if they don’t connect on their way out, their loss. You gotta be careful in your negotiations with a Savage like him.

Amazingly they did reconnect. In a hotel lobby, while the Boy and his friend were pimping themselves out to get free drinks from a couple of 40-something women — not quite old enough to be their moms — but you know it’s San Francisco…

“We almost missed the flight, but we did get one more free round…” the Boy said.

The young women from Arizona were obviously disgusted by this immoral schmooze for free booze, but hung around because they didn’t want to pay $80 for the Uber on their own.

A new passenger was in the car — his future smarty-pants girlfriend had reconnected with her friends for their cheap ass flight back to Phoenix.

The boy’s friend, and the future girlfriend’s roommate hit it off. And their friends started dating. The boy just kept hanging around as the awkward 200-pound third-wheel — for months. Smarty-pants was trapped there too. They kept pre-gaming and drinking on the cheap at her house.

After bonding over the savings of $80 on an Uber, and cheap buzzes from pre-game, the Boy grew on the smarty-pants girlfriend.

“Like a fungus,” she later told me.

She almost forgot about her introduction to him as a cheap Arizona gigolo. She almost forgot how he interjected in her friend’s conversation to save $80. She almost forgot what a self-centered ass the Boy can be — especially when he has had a dozen beers. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the dad tree on that one).

But a little liquor will quickly pry those memories open. When I remind her of them, she smiles, shrugs and looks away in despair. Ladies that’s the men’s card secret: if we all suck, you will eventually settle for one that’s not “too bad.”

They seem well matched. College educated, holding good jobs, hitting the gym, drinking on the regular, traveling frequently (more often with friends than each other), flipping cars like one-night stands…

Susan B. Anthony, the mini-doberman, seems to be the glue.

“She told me straight up, that if we split up, she gets the dog,” the Boy said.

For months they vied to be the alpha for their baby dog. Bribing her with treats. Putting the dog in the middle and calling her from opposite sides of the room and betting on whom she would come to first. But that dog will come to anyone with bacon. Food triumphs “love.”

Besides the dog, they are connected in the art of the deal. She trolls auction websites for furniture, knick-knacks and what nots. Then flips them from other websites. At one point they converted their living room into a couch showroom as she turned a profit on 5 coaches in a row.

“I think this one is it,” the Boy told me. She sold that couch later than week and finally settled on the most comfortable.

When I see with them: everything is a negotiation. They whisper, and the Boy goes to the fridge.

“I told him if he got me another beer, I would scratch his head,” smarty-pants said. He cuddles up on the couch like a golden retriever, and the head scratch lasts until the beer is gone — not a second longer.

Covid delayed the wedding plans, and they bought a house instead. They looked near us, but she tried to refuse.

“I’m not moving into the neighborhood you grew up in…”

But they bought just a mile down the street and walking distance to Downtown Gilbert — a short row of about 20 restaurants and bars where one could get drunk morning, noon and night.

As the world ignores the waning deaths of the pandemic, they put the wedding plan into action.

I’d like to point out that none of this would have happened without me. If I had not left the Boy to wait it out in the Mesa airport for 4 more hours on his own, their paths would have never crossed. Once again my selfishness pays off.

In 20 years, we’ll see if they thank me or blame me for just saying “No.”