Whenever I check my email I'm faced with the usual bombardment of forwarded chain letters, Victoria's Secret sale notifications, and "humor" messages from acquaintances and friends. Now, some of these stories are actually pretty funny (like this one about an aged Cinderella) but for the most part my reaction to these is simply a repetition of Delete Delete Delete.

One that I periodically receive over and over again is a "true story" (if you're interested, here's a link to Snopes.com's discussion and tracing of the story) about a wedding, sometimes with a note from the friend/co-worker/acquaintance sending it saying, "omg this guy is awesome" or "this is soooo hilarious!"

It basically tells the story of the reception of large wedding with about three hundred guests. The groom gets up to speak, thanks everyone for attending, especially those from long distances, and thanks the bride's father for the lavish reception. He goes on to say that as token of appreciation he has taped an envelope to the bottom of everyone's chair, and invites each guest to open their envelope. Inside the envelope is an 8x10 photo of the bride having sex with the best man, the groom having acquired this photo from a private detective when he became suspicious weeks earlier. The guy stands there for a moment enjoying his triumph, then says "fuck you" to the best man and the bride, and leaves. He has the marriage annulled the next day.

[Excerpt] "While most people would have canceled the wedding immediately after finding out about the affair, this guy goes through with the charade, as if nothing were wrong. His revenge--making the bride's parents pay over $32,000 for a 300-guest wedding and reception, and best of all, trashing the bride's and best man's reputations in front of 300 friends and family members. This guy has balls the size of church bells. Do you think we might get a MasterCard 'priceless' commercial out of this?"

I am sick of this story.

Not only am I sick of this story, I am baffled as to why people seem to find it so funny. And yes, I know it's just a story and it's silly to spend time thinking about it, but I did, so there. ^_^

First we'll think about the cruelty to the bride's family. Supposedly the groom knew about his bride to be's infidelity well beforehand and chose to punish her parents for some reason by having them shell out thousands and thousands of dollars for a meaningless (and expensive) ceremony?

What about the friends and relatives who came "long distances"? I bet they would have liked to save the money on gas and air fare if they had known that instead of going to a wedding they were going to an asshat's power trip revenge party.

And he taped an envelope to everyone's chair? With a guest list of 300 one would assume there were some children around who probably didn't need to be seeing sexually explicit photographs. Yup, bet there were some pissed off parents.

And maybe this is just me being a fairly private individual, but I don't really think it was necessary to "trash the bride's and best man's reputations in front of 300 friends and family members." And co-workers. And bosses. And acquaintances. And strangers (photographer? Caterers? Etc?). I wouldn't want that, no matter which side of the situation I was on.

Is there a conclusion? A point?

Not really. Just a random ramble.

But I still say that it's not funny.