WW07 Part 2: Pants.

Ed. note: Pictures are being added as I get them to my Yahoo! Photos at photos.yahoo.com/lesliegwinn (album Wedding Week 07).

After the rehearsal dinner on Friday night, the wedding party and friends went to the “quad” at our hotel to play a game of wiffleball (my stats: 2 runs, 3 RBIs. Kristin made me a baseball card). After about 6 long innings and losing all of our balls to the bushes, rooftops and dumpsters, we all ended up just sitting on the lawn drinking beer and chatting. Kristin and I ended up sitting and chatting with one of the best men: the groom’s 13-year-old brother, Kevin. Absolutely the coolest 13-year-old we ever met. We basically just sat in a group to the side joaning on people.

Mike (the groom) went to high school at State College High, the local high school in State College, PA (the location of Penn State’s main campus). Sarah, Kfo, Sham and I always used the term “SCAD Grad” (SCAD=State College Area School District) to refer to anyone who went to State High and subsequently Penn State- which was basically Mike and most of his friends. We even wrote them a SCAD! Theme song to the tune of “Fame!” (they hate it. Too bad.). As it got later and later Friday night, more and more SCAD Grads who had arrived in town to attend the wedding Saturday began showing up at the wiffleball field to drink.

One of those guys was someone we will here on refer to as “Pants.”

When “Pants” arrived, he dumbfounded me and Kfo on two levels: 1. How could a grown man be that skinny? 2. How could he get his pants on over his feet without sewing them onto his body? To quote Joe Dell: “There are only two reasons someone walks around looking like “Pants”: A.) He’s a rock star. B.) Heroin addict. We all know he’s not ‘A’.”

Me, Joe, Kristin and Kevin got into a really heated debate about what he was going to wear to the wedding the next day. Would it be something totally weird and edgy like his stretchy pants-wife beater-tight hoodie-emo hair combo? Or was he going to blow all of our minds and expectations by showing up in an Armani suit? We hedged our bets. “Pants” fueled a lot of our banter that night, which only escalated when he sat down on the field to chat with some other SCAD Grads. When he crouched down in those spandex knickers, we were all bracing for a split-pants incident:

Kristin: “If those pants come down any further his is going to shoot out of them.”

Leslie: “One rogue fart and those pants are gone.”

Kristin: “Ya and he would be left standing in only a nude man-beater.”

First of all, it took me a good two minutes to get that line out because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t speak. Second of all, the next day, “Pants” walked right past me before the ceremony and I didn’t recognize him.

Kristin: “He blew all our minds. He went with a great suit.”

Leslie: “THAT’S Pants?”

I should note, because it’s relevant to this blog and to the chronology of the weekend (but not necessarily this story) that when we got in the Limo to ride from our hotel to the church, there was a big screen playing a bootleg copy of Spiderman 3. Like I told Rachel when I got back: “I try to avoid Spiderman and he finds me in a limo in New Jersey. He webbed me.”

Anyway, the reception was everything I thought it would be and then some. Delicious Italian Buffet? CHECK. Open Bar? CHECK. Wedding party announced to the Bulls Theme? CHECK. Inappropriate dancing? CHECK. Leslie as the slutty bridesmaid with cleavage spilling out of her dress? CHECK.

After about 5 rounds of drinks, it was time for the bouquet toss. And yours truly caught it. The real question was which guy would get the garter? As I was standing up there with the bouquet:

Kristin: Look at Bob. He wants it.

Leslie: I think it will be Kevin It would be pretty funny if a13-year-old caught it.

And then we both saw, in slow motion, something that fate could not have better scripted: “Pants” LITERALLY jumping through the air and snatching it out from in front of everyone. Remember Macauly Culkin’s “AHHHHHHHHHHHH” face from Home Alone? Kristin and I turned to each other and replicated that face exactly to each other.

Luckily, the emcee and the groom didn’t pressure “Pants” to go up very high on my thigh with the garter belt. But after a few more drinks, I decided I wanted to draw this joke out even further, so I downed a drink, turned to Kristin and said “watch this.” Little did I know, the joke would be on me.

I went over to “Pants’s” table, where he was sitting alone:

Leslie: Thanks for going easy on me.

Pants: Huh?

Leslie: I’m Leslie. You just felt up my thigh.

Pants: Oh. Right.

Leslie: So you wanna dance?

Pants: I don’t really dance.

Leslie: It’s a slow song. You just go like this (motions slow dancing).

Pants: Where’s the fun in that?

Leslie: Are you kidding me? We’re at a WEDDING.

(Pants’s friend arrives at the table and tries really hard to get “Pants” to dance with me.)

Leslie: It’s no use. I don’t like your friend anyway.

...

Kristin: What was that about?

Leslie: I just got rejected. By Pants. (explains situation)

Kristin: (points to cleavage) Who says “no” to those? (Shamra and Jess concur.)

...

Bob: What’s wrong?

Leslie: I just asked someone to dance and I got shot down. Who says “no” to dancing at a wedding?

Bob: (rhetorically) Who would say no to you?

Leslie: Pants.

Bob: Oh. Pants. I went to school with him. He’s totally weird. Did you see what he was wearing last night?

Leslie (shouting down the head table): KRISTIN! Bob commented on the pants too!

Kfo (shouting back): Tell him about how we thought he was going to shoot out of them.

Leslie (to Bob): So do you want to dance with me?

Bob: Of course I do.

And that’s why Bob is my favorite SCAD Grad.