All she wants to do is dance: 9.16.04

Friends, today we return once again to the strange nuptial doings of the leetle sister for a quick n�disturbing story. So, I am at work today. You may already know that leetle sister can be found but a few cogs over and down on ye olde production line here in this sweatshop where we toil endlessly to make paper for the government to add to the illusion that it actually does something. No, we don�t work side by side or anything, but people around here are aware of our siblingness. Which has had the unfortunate effect of adding to the already teethgrindingly dull checklist of small talk topics (weather, the day of the week, the passing and/or approaching of another weekend) the fact that she is getting married. Periodically, folks ask if I am excited, if she is excited, if the rest of the family is excited, when the wedding is, where the wedding is and who she is marrying. The latter is the only question I enjoy answering as it presents fair opportunity for embellishing a description of her victim with my own insights on the lad.

Anyhoo, so I am at work today and this lady�a nice, older, married lady�says to moi: �Aren�t you excited about your sister�s wedding?� I say, �Oh, absolutely.� She says: �And didn�t your brother just get married too?� I say, �Yes, that�s right.� She says: �Do you know what the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition is for the last sibling to get married?� I say: �I sure don�t.� She says: �They have to dance in the pig�s trough at the wedding reception.�

I think I just stood and blinked at her for a few seconds. I am fairly certain my eyelids were making those �bloink, bloink, bloink� sounds that Wile E. Coyote�s make as he realizes he has walked onto thin air and is about to plummet thousands of feet.