Last Saturday I attended a wedding banquet I enjoyed for the most part. The only part I only sort of enjoyed was putting freshly withdrawn banknotes into an ang pow just before I got to the banquet. It was only later on that I felt parting with my money was worth it, because it was a pleasant wedding banquet. Unpretentious, short speeches, shorter (2 song) singing performances and decent food that was served quickly. Two spoonfuls of sharks’ fin soup, and the fifth course was already on the table. On hindsight, I should’ve known it wasn’t going to be unbearable, because any event involving Lat and his lot is almost always enjoyable.
A few days before the wedding, I met up with the groom and bride and they told me a funny story about the wedding preparations.
The bride was in charge of the invites, and the groom the banquet seating arrangements. They didn’t take leave from their jobs, so as you can imagine, they were very busy and very flustered. The bride looked up the names and addresses of friends and relatives of both families and hand wrote each card and envelope. Then, as is the way with modern living, you know some friends but don’t know their full names or addresses, only their handphone number and/or email address.
So, the bride goes, ‘Darling, you inviting your friend Carl?’
‘Yes’, replies the groom, poring over details of the banquet, and telling the banquet manager on the phone that there was no way he wants suckling pig on the menu because suckling pigs suck.
‘OK.’, and she starts to write out the invitation, and all is well.
‘Darling, how to spell ‘Carl’?’, she asks a few minutes later, while he is still busy on the phone.
Now, maybe she mumbled, maybe she mispronounced, maybe he was hard of hearing or maybe, and most probably, he wasn’t paying attention.
But he replies, ‘C-O-W’.
‘Are you sure it’s ‘C-O-W’?
‘Yes, C-O-W, C-O-W! Why you ask me this kind of thing?!’
A few days after the invites were written and sent out, the groom and bride were again doing some more preparations for the wedding. The bride handling the RSVPs, and the groom finalising the seating arrangments.
Looking at the list of confirmed guests, he scrolled down alphabetically till he came to ‘C’, and saw ‘Cow’.
‘Oh my God. Darling, why you call my friend Cow?’
‘I asked you how to spell, you said C-O-W’.
‘Since when? Where got people named Cow one?’
‘How I know? You and your Ah Beng friends, maybe got one called Ah Gu, so English name Cow lah!’
Put me at the right table, I give more ang pow, can?
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