This Is A True Story

INT. DINING ROOM. CHRISTMAS NIGHT.

A cheerful, bustling dining room, full of family and friends. A YOUNG WOMAN, 30-ish, stands by the cheese plate and talks to a CONSIDERABLY OLDER MAN and a WOMAN WHOSE WEDDING SHE WAS IN. She is holding a GLASS OF WINE.

OLDER MAN: You look too young to be drinking that glass of wine!

YOUNG WOMAN: Aw, thank you very much. But I assure that I am.

WOMAN WHOSE WEDDING SHE WAS IN: How old are you now? Thirty?

YOUNG WOMAN: I'll be 30 in May.

OLDER MAN: [sounds genuinely perplexed] Why aren't you married yet?

WOMAN WHOSE WEDDING SHE WAS IN: I better see if they need help in the kitchen.

YOUNG WOMAN: [cheerfully fighting the urge to explain, a la Bridget Jones, that her entire body is covered in scales, as this well meaning old man would not understand, and he clearly means the question with utmost kindness] I wish I could tell you.

OLDER MAN: Where are all the young men?

YOUNG WOMAN: I don't know.

OLDER MAN: What's wrong with them?

YOUNG WOMAN: I don't know.

OLDER MAN: You should be married.

He then tells her a very nice story, about how he met his wife -- to whom he was married for almost 40 years before she died -- explaining that they never should have met at all, but she was handing out the paychecks one day at a job he was doing to fill in for his brother, and then, three weeks later they were married.

OLDER MAN: So don't get discouraged. You never know what will happen.

YOUNG WOMAN: That's what keeps life interesting.

It's true, you know. Anything could happen, always.

Merry Christmas.

Comments

[DeAnn]

So, are YOU the young woman?

[Erik]

okay, I take it back... THIS makes for the best "how we met" story ever:

"Well, I met him at a party, and we got to talking. He kept saying things like "What's wrong with all the young men, you should be married" and "I really don't believe in long engagements". We were married on Martin Luther King Day."

I think that stories from older people about meeting and marrying in a whirlwind of romance are kind of sweet, but in my mind such things are nowadays linked to the likes of Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson. Why is that?

[Amy]

I think that there should be a law that says a single woman has the right to punch anyone who gives singletons a hard time about being single. Granted he meant well and I too believe that love will happen at the right time and all that jazz, but come on. It's the holidays and we're single. Seeing couples so happy together on those jewerly commercials is torture enough. We don't need others to point out our singleness and make us feel worse. Sorry, am a bit bitter and have been in the same situation. I wouldn't have handled that situation well. You have my utmost respect.

[Jennifer]

Amy, I had an even more fun experience this year: my uncle that always nags about me getting married every year this year finally came out with why he does it: he thinks because he got married at 21, the earlier you get married, the better chance your relationship has of surviving. So hence the naggity nag.

At which point I said, "Hey, I've been trying to find The One since high school, and it hasn't worked out. I can't make it go any faster here. It isn't under my control." At least then he shut up and has backed off ever since.

[mal-3]

"I think that there should be a law that says a single woman has the right to punch anyone who gives singletons a hard time about being single."

Right after they make the law about people elevating their own banal melodramas to the level upon which it is acceptable to be driven to a limbic assault on someone who asks an innocuous question.