Today my husband sent me a big bunch of tulips and my favorite perfume. Pretty nice for April Fool’s Day, huh?
For us, April Fool’s Day is no laughing matter (especially for my husband, I imagine)- it’s our wedding anniversary.
Why in the world would anyone get married on April Fool’s Day?
Well, as my Boston friends remind me, Californians are crazy, but we didn’t choose this date. We planned to spend the last week-end in March in Las Vegas and get married while there. (I know. This helps to prove my Boston friends’ opinion, but getting married in Vegas is almost a Californian tradition.)
Everything went wrong from the get-go.
We were supposed to leave Long Beach airport at 6 on a Saturday night, eat a buffet at 8, see a show at 10 and fly back at 4 AM. Everyone knows that you can get married at all hours in Las Vegas, so there would be plenty of time to also get married.
We sat in the airport in Long Beach for another couple of hours because our pilot called in sick and they had to find another pilot. That meant that we arrived late, we ate late (what little they had left from the night’s buffet), and we missed the show. But we had plenty of time to get married before the plane went back home. But every time I asked my soon-to-be dear husband if we should go get married now, he was having a hot streak at the craps table and wanted to wait a while.
OK, I was getting a little nervous. (I thought that was supposed to be the groom’s problem, but he’d been drinking while we waited to leave Long Beach so he was a very happy guy.)
Finally, it was get married now or risk missing the plane back. Even he could understand that. We got in a taxi and went to the marriage license bureau and found out that the only hour that the bureau was closed was that hour- 3 AM to 4 AM. By the time we got the license and hoped that the plane had also been delayed leaving Las Vegas, we found out that the plane had left exactly on time and we were stuck at a hotel that had no rooms left.
Because of the mix-up getting to Vegas, we could fly back on their next flight on the next night.
Most people would have taken that as a sign, I think. We just joked that if we didn’t like being married, we could always say, “April fool!” (I think this may definitely prove that our Boston friends were, at least, right about these two Californians.)
So, at that point, there was no rush to get married. We stood at the craps table, being hosted by the apologetic hotel staff to free champagne. As I hate champagne, my glass was full when an enthusiastic craps shooter wildly threw the dice that ended up in my glass and baptized me.
When we had two rascally boys, I often wondered if my husband wanted to say those words- “April fool!”
