it's a hard knock life

It’s funny to think about the things I have done to keep myself entertained. My college years are full of odd stories involving events that happened while I tried to entertain myself on an extremely limited budget and a small amount of sleep. The fish wedding is one such story.

I was the proud of owner of two fish. Russell was a goldfish I bought my junior year. I named him after the Wal-mart employee who got him out of the fish tank for me. Shenequah was a goldfish I bought my senior year to keep Russell company. I named her after…well, I don’t think there was reason behind the name. Russell & Shenequah lived together in their bowl. During the first few months things seemed to be going well in their relationship. However, because of my conservative views on living together and marriage, I decided that the fish needed to get married. It was probably one of those silly things that I came up with late one night when talking to my friends. Little did I know that this event would actually take place.

I shared my silly idea with my roommates and three of my good guy friends. It was 2am one weekday morning and I was in my apartment with my roommates. (Note the time of day…no good decisions are made after 2 o’clock in the morning). Three of us were up studying and one was already in bed. This was the night the guys decided that my wedding dreams would come true. I answered a knock on the door and there stood Nick with his guitar, Corey with his bible, and Matt in his graduation gown. It was wedding time! We got out the laptop and downloaded some wedding music. One of my roommates was put in charge of videography (and, yes, I still have the video and watch it whenever I need a good laugh). One of my roommates was the flower girl and another roommate was the photographer. She wasn’t too happy because she had been woken up for this impromptu wedding.

The ceremony started. I was the father of the bride so I walked down the hallway of my apartment (step…pause…step…pause) with my fishbowl in hand. We had the scripture reading and the vows and then ended with a song played on the guitar. I believe it was He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands (which was the only song Nick knew how to play at the time). Throughout the whole event we were laughing so hard that there were practically tears. After the ceremony we sent the two love birds…or love fish…off on their honeymoon. They left to the tune of Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye. The two of them lived happily ever after until they were taken from this world and given a proper burial and funeral ceremony around the toilet.

I should probably be embarrassed to admit to this. If I would have put half the energy into studying that I put into doing silly things with my friends I would have flown right through college.