The Pong-themed Wedding

So Britny and I were discussing wedding themes, and she asked me what video game I'd like to use as a wedding theme. I answered, "Pong." Britny was quick to tell me that wasn't possible, but I begged to differ. This is what my Pong-themed wedding would look like:

Needless to say, we won't be using this theme for our wedding. But, it is possible!

How I Met Britny

My middle school cafeteria was average, I guess. The floors and ceiling were off-white and dull, the walls were a brownish tan, and the tables and chairs were so entirely unremarkable that I can’t recall anything unique about them. It served the usual selection of cafeteria food – pizza-shaped rubber, filler burgers, and might-be-chicken sandwiches, all of it slathered in grease. Like most middle school guys I knew, I didn’t much care what it was so long as it was warm and tasted vaguely like what it was supposed to resemble.

I had one friend, JJ, who would always buy pizza and dab the oily residue away with a stack of paper napkins, noting that he was “wiping the acne off.” The rest of knew he was just being silly. After all, nutrition facts only mattered on health tests, not in real-life application. Our favorite lunchroom game, “Spewing Fruitworks, consisted of me taking a drink of my favorite lunchtime beverage –  a FruitWorks-brand strawberry lemonade – and one of my friends making me laugh mid-swig. The resulting explosion would cover a good part of the table with spit-laden, strawberry-flavored pink liquid and probably made most of the cleaning ladies hate our guts.

It was in these less-than-glorious circumstances that I met the girl of my dreams.

Sometime during my seventh-grade year, between wiping the grease off his pizza and making me spray perfectly good carbonated drink across the table, JJ was telling us about a girl he was dating. The whole thing seemed very odd to me. After all, we were only thirteen, barely even teenagers. I’d seen and heard about people ‘dating’ but never given it much thought, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be real dating. You couldn’t do that ‘till you were sixteen, after all.

“How long have you been dating?” one of my friends – probably Brandon – asked over the general hubbub of the cafeteria.

“About a week,” JJ answered. He had long brown hair that flopped over his eyes and an old blue coat that had probably been in his family for a couple generations. He was usually the most socially awkward one of the group, which made his current relationship status all the more surprising.

“So what have you guys been doing?” another – Stephen, perhaps – inquired.

“Um… nothing,” JJ answered. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve talked to her since I asked her out.”

I was only halfway paying attention to this conversation. I was probably forming a self-righteous rant in my head about how much better I was because I would follow the Prophet’s counsel and wait until I reached the designated age. I was far too timid to actually share it, of course, but gratifying my pride didn’t require anyone other than myself and my overactive imagination. I don’t want to date right now anyway, I told myself – even if I had, I was far too chicken to actually ask anyone – so it doesn’t even matter.

“I want to be a good boyfriend for her,” JJ was saying, “so I’ve decided to stop watching South Park.” I only knew about two things about South Park: we didn’t get whatever channel it was on, and my parents didn’t like it. Since I still got most of my opinions from my parents, I disliked it as well without really knowing why. It also happened to be JJ’s favorite program, which was why his ‘sacrifice’ was so impressive.

A few minutes later, a girl appeared at JJ’s shoulder. She was thin and had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. She was probably wearing a purple T-shirt. I didn’t recognize her, but then, I didn’t recognize a lot of people back then.

“Hey, JJ,” she said.

“Oh, hey, Britny,” JJ replied. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” the girl named Britny answered. “So… listen, about us dating… I don’t think it’s working out.”

I’d never been in a relationship before, but my parents had subjected me to a sufficient number of romance movies for me to recognize that this was a breakup and to know what the generally appropriate response was to the situation. Apparently, JJ’s parents hadn’t taken such an interest in their son’s future love life.

“Oh,” JJ said. “Well, actually, that’s kind of a relief. Now I can watch South Park again.”

Britny stood there for a moment, and then left without another word. The rest of us turned to JJ in disbelief.

“Dude, you don’t say that right in front of her!”

“Shouldn’t you be upset or something?”

Being thirteen-year-old boys, we had a good laugh while instructing our friend on proper breakup etiquette. A few minutes later, we were back to our grease-wiping, drink-spewing games as though nothing had happened. That was the first time I met Britny Lewis. Little did I know that almost a decade later, she would become my fiancée.