The Bouquet

I ran around with a gang of girls in high school. We weren't a gang like you hear about today. We were just a group of girls who called ourselves "the gang". There were 13 of us and we all hung out together and had fun and readied ourselves for our college years. There was probably never as big a group of bookworms called a gang in history. We also liked to refer ourselves as "the slut club" even though not one of us ever had a date.

In our senior year of high school Kristie came to us and told us she was getting married the next day. We were in shock. We didn't even know she had a boyfriend. We were all a twitter with the hurried wedding preparations and we all went to the ceremony at a little church in Sarah Ann, WV. I went with Sami. Sami and I were pretty like minded in that neither of us particulary wanted to marry and have a family. Our goals were career oriented.

At the end of the wedding all the single girls were herded together, much to Sami's and my chagrin. But we participated because we didn't want to hurt Kristie's feelings. Sami and I stood at the back of the pack and weren't even paying attention as all the other girls were jumping and dancing and jockeying for position to catch the bouquet.

I was saying something to Sami when all of a sudden that bouquet slammed her full in the chest. She caught it even though she was looking at me and talking and paying the least bit of attention to what was going on.

She was mortified as Kristie congratulated her on catching the bouquet and told her she would be the next to be married. She wanted no more of the bouquet than I would have if I had caught it. Being the master of tact she promptly gifted the bouquet back to Kristie so that she would have it to remember her wedding for all time. Kristie objected saying that Sami was supposed to keep it for luck, but we both assured her that the bouquet would be more of a keepsake for her than it ever would for Sami.

Sami was one happy girl when Kristie finally agreed to take the bouquet and she considered it one of her favorite wedding gifts.