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The Favor
In 2002 some very close friends of mine were getting married and they asked me to create wedding favors for their reception. A wedding favor is a small gift given to attendees of a wedding as a gesture of appreciation from the bride and groom. I obliged, unaware that this favor would single-handedly be the cause of a gastrointestinal apocalypse.
The cold, orange monster
Typically, wedding favors are something you'd take home with you, such as bath kit or a box of chocolates. The bride and groom, however, requested wedding favors that could be consumed during the reception. They wanted them to be served as appetizers. With this in mind, I decided on a salmon dish. I'd smoked salmon for years and considered myself very seasoned at it, so I decided to create some kind of baguette and smoked salmon masterpiece. I remember staring at that giant mass of orange and white in the display case at the seafood market. I pondered its quality, flavor, and overall character of the fish. It sat there, happily gleaming in a bed of ice, giving no sign of the horrific monster that lay dormant.
Space is limited on the endless sea
The wedding reception was held on a large boat. The type of boat they rented can hold up to 200 people, and they are typically used for corporate events, parties, or other such occasions. The standard trip involves traveling for 2 hours out into the bay, and then 2 hours coming back. This means if you're attending the wedding ceremony, you're commited to spending at least 4 hours there. Normally this would have been fine and dandy, but this also meant that the number of available toilets was very, very limited.
Rave reviews
The smoked salmon appetizers were devoured mercilessly by the guests. Everyone gleefully stuffed the fish into their faces like a fat kid eats gravy on christmas. For those five minutes before dinner my smoked salmon baguette was the talk of the town.
The storm approaches
Fast forward a few hours: gurgling stomachs, awkward flatulence, and an entire wedding party of uncomfortable abdominal pain masked by expensive dresses and rental tuxedos. Inside their tummies a storm bigger than Jupiter's butthole was brewing, and neither God nor man could stop it.
An atom is split, and toilets will fall
The first round of people who got diarrhea thought they could monopolize the toilets and hang out in there as long as their angry rectums demanded, but they soon found themselves ousted by another angrier, more demanding rectum who hadn't had a chance to use the toilet yet. Man, woman, and child: everyone sat on a ceramic throne that day and did terrible things in the name of food poisoning.
When one of the toilets backed up in the women's restroom, multi-colored water snaked through all the other stalls and forced the men's restroom to become co-ed. Now, not only did everyone have to suffer the humiliation of having their friends and family hear the roaring splatter of an unhappy bowel movement, their wives, girlfriends, and future significant others had to hear it as well. It was an orchestra of feces: If Ludvig van Beethoven was celebrated for his ability to defecate, this would have been his 9th symphony.
The journey home
No one died, and as far as I can tell only a few people vomited. Vomiting and diarrhea both sound the same when food is exiting the body at a thousand miles an hour, so I couldn't discern much from my stall-to-stall evesdropping. Toilet paper reserves were exhausted, pride was hurt, and a beautiful bride had her beautiful day obliterated by a poor choice of fish. We were able to pinpoint salmon as the culprit simply because it was the one common dish that everyone who got sick had shared.
I apologized hundreds of times. I apologized for assaulting the minds and bodies of those who only wanted to celebrate the union of a couple in love. I apologized to the ship's crew, who will no doubt have nightmares for years to come spurred by the memory of mopping up that liquid rainbow which marred the bathroom floor. I apologized to the bride and groom for turning their wedding reception into a mashup of musical chairs and the hershey squirts. I apologized for all of this - I apologized for my wedding favors.
In 2002 some very close friends of mine were getting married and they asked me to create wedding favors for their reception. A wedding favor is a small gift given to attendees of a wedding as a gesture of appreciation from the bride and groom. I obliged, unaware that this favor would single-handedly be the cause of a gastrointestinal apocalypse.
The cold, orange monster
Typically, wedding favors are something you'd take home with you, such as bath kit or a box of chocolates. The bride and groom, however, requested wedding favors that could be consumed during the reception. They wanted them to be served as appetizers. With this in mind, I decided on a salmon dish. I'd smoked salmon for years and considered myself very seasoned at it, so I decided to create some kind of baguette and smoked salmon masterpiece. I remember staring at that giant mass of orange and white in the display case at the seafood market. I pondered its quality, flavor, and overall character of the fish. It sat there, happily gleaming in a bed of ice, giving no sign of the horrific monster that lay dormant.
Space is limited on the endless sea
The wedding reception was held on a large boat. The type of boat they rented can hold up to 200 people, and they are typically used for corporate events, parties, or other such occasions. The standard trip involves traveling for 2 hours out into the bay, and then 2 hours coming back. This means if you're attending the wedding ceremony, you're commited to spending at least 4 hours there. Normally this would have been fine and dandy, but this also meant that the number of available toilets was very, very limited.
Rave reviews
The smoked salmon appetizers were devoured mercilessly by the guests. Everyone gleefully stuffed the fish into their faces like a fat kid eats gravy on christmas. For those five minutes before dinner my smoked salmon baguette was the talk of the town.
The storm approaches
Fast forward a few hours: gurgling stomachs, awkward flatulence, and an entire wedding party of uncomfortable abdominal pain masked by expensive dresses and rental tuxedos. Inside their tummies a storm bigger than Jupiter's butthole was brewing, and neither God nor man could stop it.
An atom is split, and toilets will fall
The first round of people who got diarrhea thought they could monopolize the toilets and hang out in there as long as their angry rectums demanded, but they soon found themselves ousted by another angrier, more demanding rectum who hadn't had a chance to use the toilet yet. Man, woman, and child: everyone sat on a ceramic throne that day and did terrible things in the name of food poisoning.
When one of the toilets backed up in the women's restroom, multi-colored water snaked through all the other stalls and forced the men's restroom to become co-ed. Now, not only did everyone have to suffer the humiliation of having their friends and family hear the roaring splatter of an unhappy bowel movement, their wives, girlfriends, and future significant others had to hear it as well. It was an orchestra of feces: If Ludvig van Beethoven was celebrated for his ability to defecate, this would have been his 9th symphony.
The journey home
No one died, and as far as I can tell only a few people vomited. Vomiting and diarrhea both sound the same when food is exiting the body at a thousand miles an hour, so I couldn't discern much from my stall-to-stall evesdropping. Toilet paper reserves were exhausted, pride was hurt, and a beautiful bride had her beautiful day obliterated by a poor choice of fish. We were able to pinpoint salmon as the culprit simply because it was the one common dish that everyone who got sick had shared.
I apologized hundreds of times. I apologized for assaulting the minds and bodies of those who only wanted to celebrate the union of a couple in love. I apologized to the ship's crew, who will no doubt have nightmares for years to come spurred by the memory of mopping up that liquid rainbow which marred the bathroom floor. I apologized to the bride and groom for turning their wedding reception into a mashup of musical chairs and the hershey squirts. I apologized for all of this - I apologized for my wedding favors.
I laughed
This post has been edited by HowlinMadMurdoc: 15 April 2009 - 12:16 PM
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