I went to a wedding in a big church out in the Sandhills of Nebraska this morning, but before leaving on the long drive, I got all set up in the usual standard customary blue three-piece pin-striped suit, when I suddenly remembered something.
There was a bonfire on Skins's island the other day, where the primitives were talking about cellular telephones, and Playboy Pedro mentioned that some time ago at a wedding party, he had gotten drunk and dunked his cellular telephone into the wedding punch.
Never mind that Playboy Pedro is circa three decades too old for such nonsense; he's a richboy primitive, after all, where
gauche is permissible, even laudable.
It occurred to me this morning, while I was getting ready, that within my own lifetime, Americans in general have become rather, uh, rude, in their pervasive use of portable telephones, including at weddings, funerals, concerts, and somesuch.
But that's neither here nor there; being deaf, I don't mess with it.
However, since I like the couple being coupled, and think it's rude to interrupt a wedding, I thought it might be a good idea to become pro-active on this issue, compelling good manners rather than tolerating bad manners.
After I was ready to leave, I stopped off in town to a certain storage shed, where I keep things I don't need out here, and picked up a certain favorite antiquity, a telephone that might have been used by Henry R. Luce of
Time magazine circa 1930.
It's an authentic antique, and yes, it's a working telephone if one connects it.
Whenever I get around to winning the Powerball, this is the telephone that's going to be used in my main office, myself being the only person who couldn't use it, though. But it would look great, oozing class and distinction.
It has a 14' cord, too.
About an hour later, I got to the church, a massive structure out in the serene solitary beauty of the Sandhills, although a little bit too
nouveau, too trendy, too hip, too cool, for my own tastes. I always preferred brown brick ivy-covered churches of the medieval English design.
My neighbor was an usher, and I got there early, as some wedding guests do, so as to enjoy circa an hour of the musical arts before the service. I can't enjoy such musical arts, but I had another reason for getting there early.
My neighbor arched his eyebrows when he saw me carrying this telephone, but knowing me, he figured it was okay, and that one might even get a worthwhile show out of it. I was supposed to sit with his wife and three infants, but I said no; I wanted to sit at the far edge, near the front, alone.
We walked up to the front of the church, the cord ostentatiously dragging behind me on the floor. The pews are such that there is one 20' length on one side, then the aisle, and then two 20' lengths on the other side. Most people sit in either the first, or the middle, pews. I wanted to sit in a far-left pew, over by the confessionals, and up front enough where I would, uh, be noticeable by most of the audience.
When making my way from the aisle through the pews, walking over the kneelers, I made it a point to take it slow and easy, holding the telephone in mid-air about shoulder-level, the cord dragging behind me. I made it appear as if every few steps, the cord got snagged in something on the floor, after which I was compelled to stop and release it, telephone up in the air.
I wanted as many people as possible to see I too had a telephone; as I moved, once in a while I would "jiggle" the instrument, which caused it to ring, just in case no one saw it.
I sprawled in the corner of the left-hand pew, facing the audience rather than the altar, as the musical concert played on. I was in my usual customary habitual casual, laid back, mellow posture, my left elbow dropping from the side of the end of the pew, my left knee propped up upon my right knee. And the telephone precariously sitting atop my left knee.
From the side, I watched the audience during the pre-nuptial concert; every time someone picked up his cellular telephone, I too picked up the headset to this one, as if it too had rung, with a message for me. If the person didn't see, I slightly jiggled my knee, so as to make my telephone "ring" too, after which the person saw.
After the audience got large enough, a pattern developed; I would spy something reaching for his cellular telephone, and so reach for mine. It wasn't even necessary for me to pick up the headset; just being seen reaching for it was enough to make the particular guest behave, and put his own telephone back down.
By the time the bride started marching down the aisle with her father towards the altar, things were well under control; the audience was paying attention to the wedding, not their "urgent" messages on their cellular telephones.
But I kept my guard up all during the service (I already knew what the bride and the groom looked like, so I could do this), watching the audience instead of the service. It happened only about three times during that hour that I spotted someone reaching for his telephone, at which I quickly and ostentatiously reached for the headset of my own telephone--but I never had to lift it off the hook, as the other person, seeing me, immediately behaved.
All I had to do was make a motion to reach for it.
It was a great wedding, not least because those at it minded their manners.
