The Wedding - From Rick

What sort of man would let himself get pushed into buying his own wedding cake? Don’t answer that! I’ll bet Brad Pitt didn’t let Angelina make him go out and buy their cake.

“But I don’t know the first think about buying a wedding cake.” I remember myself whining back.

“You don’t have to dummy,” Margaret snapped back at me. “Here’s a list of everything I want. Just give it to the baker. It’s a no-brainer, which is perfect for you.”

I should have told her to get one of her bridesmaids to do it. I should have told her to shove it. Instead it was just “Of course dear” as always and here I am buying a cake.

“May I help you sir?” came this soft voice from just behind me.

I turned around and there was this vision in yellow, this Marilyn Monroe clone looking up at me with the biggest, bluest eyes I had ever seen.

God I was mesmerized by her smile and stood there for about 10 minutes before I stammered something like “Me buy cake”

“Well you’ve come to the right place. We make the best wedding cakes in Sydney. My name’s Brandi and I’ll help you get exactly what you’re looking for. What did you have in mind?”

What would Brad Pitt do in a spot like this? Well for one thing, he wouldn’t pull out a list that Angelina gave him. I pushed the paper deeper into my pocket.

“Maybe you could take me through this. This is my first wedding cake” I said in my best Brad voice. That wasn’t too bad.
“You’re first wedding cake”, she giggled. “Oh you’re so funny.”

She took a hold of my arm and walked me over to a small table with a plate of cake morsels and small coffee cups.

“The first thing to do is to try our cakes. We have 3 different recipes, a golden, a flourless and our classic fruit. A cake is for eating so you better know what you’re in for.”

I sampled each of them, not tasting a thing as I kept staring at her. “Mmmmmmmm they all taste so good. Let’s go with the classic fruit.”

“Excellent choice sir. That’s my favorite too.”

“Call me Brad, I mean Greg. I’m Greg Sampson”

“ooo, Sampson like the strong man in the Bible” she cooed. I didn’t correct her.

“Now the next thing Mr. Samson is the size. Don’t let people tell you different. Size matters. How many people will be at your wedding?”

Good question I thought to myself. Margaret’s back at the flat right now deciding who’s going to be coming. Likely just our families but who knows.

“150” I answered assertively.

“Ok then, we should have our 3 tier model for that many. That way everyone will get a taste.”

“Next are the decorations. Let me show you what we have.”

She tugged on my arm again and took me over to shelves with dozens of little statues on it.

“I’ll show you the classic bride and groom first” she said, bending down to get them from the shelf and showing me the finest cleavage ever in the process.

“Now these are the most popular…”

“I can’t breath”, I choked. My lungs felt as if someone had grabbed them in a vise.

“Oh Mr. Samson, I’ll bet you say that to all the girls”, she said blushingly.

“No, no. I mean it. I can’t breath.”

I was gasping a bit, looking very uncool, and I felt myself getting light headed. Then I was gasping a lot, with no results.

“Call 000”, Brandi yelled to someone in the back. I fell to the floor and then Brandi was putting her mouth on mine when everything went black.




“You idiot. I told you to buy a simple cake. Can’t you follow instructions?”, were the first words that hit me as I came out of the deepest sleep ever. Margaret was standing there beside the bed with this angry look on her face. Why hadn’t I noticed before that she was always angry.

“What happened?” I croaked. “Where am I?”

“You’re at the hospital. They say you had some sort of allergic reaction to something.”

“That can’t be. I’m only allergic to almonds and I didn’t eat any. All I had was a couple of pieces of wedding cake samples and they didn’t have nuts in them.”

“You idiot.” she cackled. She calls me that a lot I noticed. “Everyone knows that wedding cakes are covered in marzipan which is pretty much all almonds. What were you thinking?”

What a great question. How come I never asked myself that? That was what I thought to myself. But from somewhere else came my answer to her.

“I was thinking that I almost died and the first words you say to me were You idiot. I was thinking that this wedding is a bad idea. I was thinking that the only reason I said yes to this wedding was because I was afraid to say no. I was thinking maybe you should leave. That’s what I was thinking.”

Wow did that feel good. And I meant every word.

“And I was thinking I could use some more sleep.”

She stomped out of the room without even saying goodbye or “Let’s talk later” or anything at all.

As I drifted peacefully off to sleep, I had this wonderful old song running through my head, “Brandy, Brandy you’re a fine girl.”

Also titled:

A Shot of Brandy
Wedding Bell Blues