Moonlighting Suckage

[BookBint]

Reading jedikuonji's post about the Wedding of Doom inspired me to write this, as I have been to many many weddings in a semi-professional capacity...

Apart from my day job in the grinding machine that is publishing, I also moonlight as a singer for weddings, funerals, hotel restaurants, that kind of thing. A friend from university (R) is a pianist and when he's not being irritatingly successful in the West End he rings me up and asks if I want to make a quick buck for a couple of hours work. I generally do. Anyway, below is a selection of the fuckwittage I have been witness to or being subjected to...

Funeral of a teenager
Song - 'Ave Maria' (snore)
Suckage: someone let out a massive burp. Many people laughed. WTF?

Funeral of a middle-aged man
Song - something long by Bach.
Suckage: Only about 20 people there and several left halfway through. What respect.

Hotel bar
Song - general jazz smoothness
Suckage: having my arse grabbed by a passing drunk. Totally screwed up the top B in 'Summertime'.

Wedding 1:
Song: the closing notes of 'Ain't Misbehavin'
Suckage: One of the groomsmen who was so drunk he couldn't stand, yelling 'want to go outside and f*ck??!!' at me.

Wedding 2:
Song: God knows, I was half out the door
Suckage: a bridesmaid throwing a glass of red wine over a waitress who 'looked at her boyfriend.' Not surprising really, the bridesmaid looked like the tragic result of inbreeding.

Conference lobby for overpaid accountants:
Song: Non piu de fiori by Mozart
Suckage: No fewer than three drunk men tried to sit down at the piano with R and started hitting keys. Did they think it was a duet??? Luckily he has sharp elbows.

There are many more, but I have lost the will to remember any for the present...

[NateTheChops]

Funeral of a teenager
Song - 'Ave Maria' (snore)
Suckage: someone let out a massive burp. Many people laughed. WTF?

They played Ava Maria in the Christmas mix at work last year. Bad song to play when I'm surrounded by demanding customers during the week and the first thing I think of when hearing it is assasinating diplomats and trying to avoid witnesses...

The laugh part I could almost forgive though. Funerals, especially for a kid half to be tough on everyone. But I hear what you're saying about the lack of consideration.

I used to catch the same crap with my tarot readings. Drunks, druggies, and all manner of people trying to get a free reading because they're basically assholes.

And the "prove it" people are the best. They don't believe it so they demand I "prove" it to them and of course you know that no matter what you say they're going to shout from the rough tops that you're no good.

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

I used to catch the same crap with my tarot readings. Drunks, druggies, and all manner of people trying to get a free reading because they're basically assholes.
And the "prove it" people are the best.

...and that's why I never started reading "professionally".
I used to spend a lot of time (and money) a "tarots and such" shop in the small town I lived in, and the lady owner did professional readings. She told me several stories about similar situations, like "'m'on, draw a card, only one, and tell me something about me. If you get it right I'll believe you are good and will pay".
I guess she could have said "You are a cheap a**hole" without even looking at her deck and be perfectly correct, but I doubt that the person in question would have welcomed her reading too positively.

[Mnemjian]

Suckage: One of the groomsmen who was so drunk he couldn't stand, yelling 'want to go outside and f*ck??!!' at me.

And you DIDN'T???? How did you ever resist? I mean what a catch, right girls?

[Sparky]

Funeral of a teenager
Song - 'Ave Maria' (snore)
Suckage: someone let out a massive burp. Many people laughed. WTF?

I'm kind of with Nate the Chops. I think a lot of people get the giggles when stressed. Laughing at a funeral is a completely in approproate response, but some people's nervous systems decide this is the best way to release the tension.

Still not polite.

[TelephoneAngel]

I've been part of innappropraite giggling at funerals.

At my father's funeral, the vicar kept getting my (admittedly awkward) name wrong, and by the time he had said a completely different name for me the sixth time, even my mother had her face buried in a handkerchief and was trying not to giggle.

[Rhania506]

...At my father's funeral, the vicar kept getting my (admittedly awkward) name wrong, and by the time he had said a completely different name for me the sixth time, even my mother had her face buried in a handkerchief and was trying not to giggle.

This happened at my grandmothers funeral. Including stepfamily, she had 8 kids and 14 grandkids, and a good portion of the names started with the same letter. Our pastor had to read them from a list and tripped over a few of the names (including mine and I have known him for about 15 years). There was much quiet giggling among the grandkids. We received many glares.

~Rhania

[emax4]

At my grandmother's funeral with myself and my then girlfriend (GF).

(I notice a panel open up and someone step out, showing a fire exit)
Me: Hmm, I never knew that since it seemed covered up. I wonder that, if there's a fire, do you try and save the body too?
GF: I can top that. If the body makes it out, is it considered a survivor?

I had a hard time stifling my laugh after that one...

[JustaCashier]

Chuckles the Clown.


*cookies slathered in bacon grease for reference*


Mike

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Chuckles the Clown.

Yeah, I remember him. He was the guy dressed up as a peanut and a rogue elephant tried to shell him.

I watched a little too much Nick at Nite for my own good.

[blas]

Drunken groomsmen are awful. Every single one of my friend's husband's groomsmen got sloshed at their wedding (including the groom, how classy).

One of them was so drunk, he kept falling down, and still kept trying to get up to dance. He completely destroyed his rental tux. He accidentally had torn one of the armpits of a sleeve amidst one of his falls, and he laughed about it and just ripped it some more! He was completely soaked head to toe in beer by the end of the night, since neither my friend or her husband had the heart to kick him out. They'd let him dance with a pitcher of beer for hours, which of course, sloshed all over him and anyone near him.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Worst thing that happened at a wedding in my presence is one of my uncles got drunk off his ass and took a swing at my dad.

It's kinda disconcerting seeing the berries and cherries flashing outside the bar window and knowing they're there because of your family.

To that uncle's credit, he's put his problems with alcohol behind him, and now has a pretty good job in town and a family.

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

At my wedding, a friend of my wife's (who is married and has a small child, but his wife and child couldn't be there as they live in a different country and the baby was too small to travel) got completely sloshed and tried some of his "charm" on my wife's bridesmaid. Who was also very drunk and... let's say didn't shy away.
Point is, the maximum of the groping happened in the smoking terrace, with my best man (who thank heavens didn't get drunk - he was there with his two child daughters) as a witness. And the bridesmaid's live-in partner of several years, too.