Lola Got Covid

Lola got covid.

That’s probably not what you expected to read today. I imagine you thought I’d write about a certain wedding I’ve been posting about non-stop for three straight days. But the story of this weekend—both what happened, and, more importantly, what almost didn’t—actually began long before with the virus that everyone is absolutely sick of talking about. To fully grasp the impossibly bad timing of the events that just transpired, we need to go back in time just a bit. Let’s talk about 2020. Actually, scratch that. Let’s go all the way back to 2010.

That’s the year Lola and I named our college friends, Winston and Virginia, as the godparents for our first-born daughter, Betsy. The pair began dating shortly after graduation and had been an item for years by the time the baptism rolled around. They weren’t married yet, but Lola and I figured it was only a matter of time, so we had no problem granting them godparent roles as a couple. Then they broke up. I don’t remember when or why and am definitely not qualified to write about it (not that that ever stops me from writing about anything else), but they were together and then they weren’t together and then they were together again. I just summed up literally ten years of relationship drama in one sentence. I should work for Sparknotes. Finally, after a decade of delays, the two people Lola and I knew all along were perfect for each other were ready to tie the knot. The year was 2020. Good thing nothing bad was about to happen in the world.

Oh, wait. There was that whole global pandemic thing. After waiting for her big day more patiently than perhaps any other woman in human history, Virginia still couldn’t get the wedding she deserved. She and Winston ended up getting hitched in a tiny, socially distanced ceremony with about a dozen people in attendance. Lola and I were two of the twelve. The reception was pushed to 2021, when we were sure everyone would finally be able to come together. This would be the grand, no-holds-barred celebration we’d all been waiting for. Then, in June 2021, there was another covid surge, and the reception was canceled again. This time, it was pushed to June 2022. We put it on our calendars for a third time, asked off work, and made all the necessary travel arrangements for a full weekend in St. Louis. It’s not hyperbole to say that, after all the build up and cancellations, this was the most highly anticipated event of our adult lives. Finally, after an unbelievably improbable series of delays, it was actually going to happen. The reception was just days away. Then Lola got covid.

This is the point where I have to get vague about the timeline. There are those who get mad when people take covid seriously and those who get mad when they don’t take it seriously enough, and it’s impossible to say anything concrete about covid precautions and recovery steps without offending one or both groups. I look forward to not reading any of the emails I get back after this week’s newsletter. Lola had a minor cold, and, because—unlike me—she’s a good person who thinks of others first, she decided to take an at-home covid test. It took about two seconds to reveal two bright pink lines. They practically glowed. She was more covid the person. In terms of symptoms, she was fine. She’s vaccinated and not in any at-risk demographics. Also, she’s spent the last twelve years having children drip snot all over her, so her immune system is pretty robust. Still, if she was infected, she obviously couldn’t be out and about for fear of spreading it. We frantically started doing covid math to figure out if going to the wedding was even in the realm of possibility. Based on when she tested positive and the latest guidelines, it looked like she would be out of quarantine just in time for the weekend. We’d be in the clear by a matter of hours—if no one else in the house caught it from her. Each new infection would extend our lockdown. Too bad we had a house full of tiny people who catch every germ and virus known to man. The outlook was not good.

My children have no fear of covid, but they have the greatest fear in the world of covid tests. They would rather fight a bear on meth than have those extra long Q-tips jammed up their nostrils. I can’t blame them. The last time I pulled one out of my nose, it had a little bit of brain matter on it. We tested everyone in the house right away, which led to much wailing and multiple escape attempts. This was a rare situation where we were actually hoping for positive results. If we were all infected, we could get our quarantines out of the way and all go to the wedding reception of legend. The virus had already run through our house twice. Betsy had it first at the end of 2020, and then, months later, our now-six-year-old, Waffle, and I got it, too. Lola made it through both waves without catching anything, despite having infected people hanging all over her the entire time. Unfortunately, this time, the tests for the rest of the family came back negative. Lola somehow got infected all by herself. We’d all have to test again in [insert whatever number of days won’t make you angry]. The long-awaited reception was in the balance.

Upping the pressure, Lola and I were both supposed to give speeches at the reception. Lola was a co-matron of honor, and I was, well, no one really knows. I was in the wedding party but not the best man, yet Winston and Virginia decided to let me speak anyway. Some people just want to watch the world burn. If you’ve read any of my prior newsletters, you know there’s a bit of history with me and speeches at wedding receptions. Giving me the spotlight is a good way to end up with inconveniently large taxidermy. Lola and I both had our speeches written, but it seemed unlikely that we’d ever get to read them. The outlook was so bad, that, the day before the rehearsal dinner, none of us had even packed. That night, we took the final round of tests. The results came in one-by-one, ten minutes apart: Betsy, negative; Mae, negative; Lucy, negative; Waffle, negative; and me, negative (Let’s be honest: Everything about me is.). The Breakwells were going to the reception! Maybe.

First, we had to check with the bride. Despite what the first thousand words of this newsletter would have you believe, the weekend was actually about her, not us. It would all come down to what she was comfortable with. Her word was law, superseding scientific studies, CDC guidelines, and the U.S. Constitution. On her wedding day, a bride can overrule the Supreme Court. Virginia had an extra incentive to be cautious. While the party portion of her wedding had been on hold for years, the rest of her life hadn’t been. She was now seven months pregnant with a baby whose health was a tad more important than whether or not Lola and I got to embarrass ourselves giving speeches in front of drunk people. Lola went upstairs to call Virginia and give her a rundown of the whole situation. The rest of us waited with bated breath for her verdict. A few minutes later, Lola came downstairs, her face red from crying. Virginia told us to come. Lola had shed tears of relief. There are a lot of emotions in that lady.

Our house exploded in a flurry of activity as we all started packing. I’ve never seen so many fancy dresses in one place. Each girl needed three: one for the rehearsal dinner, one for the wedding reception, and one for the baby shower scheduled for that Sunday. It took me ten seconds to pack, but the rest of my crew spent a substantial block of time on critical fashion decisions. I’ve never felt so outnumbered. I should have asked them to pack a dress for me, too.

The next day, we arrived in St. Louis a few hours before the rehearsal, which we didn’t have to attend. Since we did the whole walking-down-the-aisle thing before at the twelve-person pandemic wedding, we didn’t have any church duties this time around. The new ceremony was actually a marriage blessing, not another wedding. After Winston and Virginia’s years of terrible timing, it was safe to assume the blessing from the original one had worn off. My family still got to go to the rehearsal dinner, though, which was the most important part of the day. Just point me toward the free food. While there, Waffle lost a tooth that vanished on the restaurant floor until Lola found it. (I previously tweeted that a waitress found it, which was, in fact, incorrect. Shockingly, my Twitter account isn’t always a source of super accurate information.) It was for the best. Defanged, Waffle couldn’t bite anyone for the rest of the weekend. Afterward, we retreated back to our Airbnb to rest up for the big day. Against all odds, the party of destiny was almost here.

We woke up Saturday cautiously optimistic. We just had to go eight more hours without any freak disasters to actually make it to the reception. My head was on a swivel watching out for rogue buses and surprise raptor attacks. I normally try to make my kids eat healthy, but after years of waiting for this weekend, all rules went out the window. I started out the morning by buying them the biggest doughnuts I’ve ever seen. By volume, four of them equaled one wedding cake. Lunch went less smoothly. I ordered hotdogs for pick-up and got an online confirmation that they’d be ready in ten minutes. All the kids wanted to come with me to get them. After a quiet morning of playing my favorite board games with me, anything seemed like an adventure by comparison. But when we got to the hot dog place, we discovered that it was closed. I immediately suspected a trap. Somebody knew my one weakness was fast food meat of questionable origin and lured me there for a mafia-style hit. Rather than an assissination attempt, it turned out to be run-of-the-mill bad service. I scrambled to find some other source of food. I had to feed not just my family but most of the bridal party, whose members were doing their makeup in our oversized Airbnb bathroom. I managed to secure some pizza just in time for them to eat and head to the church. We soon discovered we didn’t need to rush. We got there well before the bride and groom. Winston was nearly late to his own ceremony, which totally tracks with everything else about him. He’s mastered the art of being reliably unreliable.

After the church ceremony, where I once again managed to endure a full mass without being excommunicated or bursting into flames, we headed to the reception, the real main event. We’d finally made it. Now is when the nerves kicked in. After helping myself to the open bar I’d been dreaming of for most of my adult life, Winston tapped me on the shoulder and told me the order of the speeches. They would start with the father of the bride, then the matron of honor (Virginia’s sister), the best man (Winston’s brother), the other matron of honor (Lola), and finally, me. From one point of view, I went last because I was the least important person there; from the other, I was the headliner. Winston had only asked me to give a speech a few days earlier, so I’m guessing the former interpretation is correct. I came up with my speech in one pass saying it out loud to myself in the mirror. I eventually wrote it down, but only because I didn’t want to forget my best insults. This was not headliner-quality stuff, but it was too late to back out now. I had consumed the free booze. I was locked in.

Then Lola swooped in and made everything worse. She knew in advance that she couldn’t make it through her speech without having a complete emotional breakdown. Even talking about the speech without quoting it left her in tears. Rather than working to overcome this shortcoming, she embraced it. She wrote out her speech and gave it to our oldest daughter to read. That was definitely cheating. Lola planned this underhanded move well in advance and even wrote it into her speech. Betsy was an eager accomplice. She strode to the front of the reception hall and grabbed the microphone.

“Hello everyone, I’m Betsy Breakwell, Lola and James’ oldest daughter. As Winston and Virginia can attest, my mom is helpless and can’t do something like this without being overcome with emotions (even just writing it made her cry) so she has asked me to give her toast for her. Hello everyone, I’m Lola Breakwell…”

She was incredible. She didn’t just read it; she acted it out with enough passion for a Broadway monologue. It helped that she looks just like Lola. If she hadn’t pointed out the swap, some people might not have even noticed. Lola’s words and Betsy’s performance combined to bring down the house. Their devious scheme worked. Afterward, the other matron of honor said she wished she could have used the same trick, but her oldest kid was only three. Lola told her it was her own fault for not reproducing sooner. If you really want to get out of a speech, you have to plan ahead. I thought Lola started a family with me because she loved me, but it turns out she was just plotting years in advance to get out of one three-minute public speaking engagement. For the record, Lola was right about herself, and she cried through Betsy’s entire toast.

Then it was time for me, the main attraction/most minor character in this entire story.

“Seriously, you expect me to follow that?” I said into the microphone.

As far as I know, there’s no video of me giving the speech (and that’s a blessing), but I’ll repost the text here. Although I guess if you’re listening to the audio version of this newsletter, you’re literally hearing me give it again. Lucky you. This is roughly what I said, with the appropriate fake names swapped in and including a few minor changes I made on the fly to take into account the fact that Betsy crushed it right before me:

“Hey everyone, I’m James Breakwell, and I’ve known Winston and Virginia since college. I actually met Winston a few days into our freshman year. In fact, he introduced me to my wife Lola. You didn’t see her because she dumped her speech on our oldest daughter. Don’t give Winston too much credit for bringing us together, though. It was a small college, and I had a ton of classes with Lola, so we would have met eventually, but Winston is the one who officially introduced us. If anything, he owes her an apology for ruining her life.

Winston is the smartest guy I know. I cannot tell you how much it pains me to say that. I hate saying nice things about people, and especially about him. But being that smart didn’t necessarily make Winston a great student. He and I would both put off big projects until the last minute. We just had a different definition of what the last minute really was. I would write my papers the night before they were due, our friend Doug would write his the morning they were due, and Winston would write them a day after they were due. I don’t know if he ever turned in anything on time in all four years of college, but somehow, the professors adjusted to his schedule, and not the other way around. He graduated, anyway. At that point, I think the professors just wanted to get rid of him, and I can’t blame them at all.

Needless to say, Winston has always operated on his own timeline, and he won’t be rushed by anyone or anything. When Lola and I had our oldest daughter, we picked Winston and Virginia as godparents. That was mainly because we thought Virginia would be awesome at it, and we were right. She will never, ever forget to send a gift. If I could give everyone here one piece of parenting advice, it would be to make Virginia the godmother for all of your kids. If your kids already have a godparent, fire them.

So that’s why we picked Virginia. But we picked Winston, too, because he and Virginia were dating and everyone could see they were right for each other. We figured they’d be married in no time at all. That was 2010.

They did get married, but on Winston’s timeline ten years later, and not a moment sooner. He put it off so long that his goddaughter just gave a toast at his wedding. He’s so good at procrastinating that I think he rubbed off on the universe. When it was finally time for the wedding, we were in the middle of a global pandemic, and the reception got postponed by another two years to tonight. I 100 percent blame Winston for all of this.

So I’d like to propose a toast. To Winston, a really smart guy who always gets it right—eventually.”

The speech went okay. It didn’t go over as well as Betsy’s speech, but after she raised the bar, I was happy to slink away with whatever laughs I could get. After that, all that was left to do was party. There was food and alcohol and dancing, and a good time was had by all. I got lost in the moment, which is the true point of any wedding reception. The only pictures I took the entire night were at the end, when Lola and the bride’s father, Hank, both respected scientists, worked out how to bundle up the leftover wedding cake with duct tape and saran wrap. I feel like these pictures need to be shared with the world.

The reception was over, but I wasn’t ready for the night to end. Earlier in the day, I made plans to go bar hopping after the reception. Everyone doubted I’d follow through, including me, which meant I had to do it to prove the masses wrong. Lola and I met Winston and Virginia and a bunch of other wedding guests at Winston’s favorite bar. I was falling asleep in my chair. Even the pregnant lady was putting me to shame, but I was determined not to give up. I said I was going to bar “hop,” which implied reaching a second bar and nothing less. When everyone else turned in for the night, the last four of us rallied and moved on to bar number two. Luckily, we didn’t have to travel far. This was in St. Louis, where there’s a bar every twelve feet. It’s mandated by their zoning laws. We ended up staying out till 1 a.m., which at my age, felt like a raging all-nighter, even if I was just quietly sitting at a table sipping the cheapest vodka on the menu. I’m always a classy date.

A special shoutout to Ham, who led us to bar two and specifically asked to be mentioned in this week’s newsletter with that fake name for reasons I don’t understand. I just do as I’m told. I’ve become something of an official record keeper for functions like this, even if I always ignore the main event and make the whole thing about me. In the future, maybe engaged couples will hire a photographer, a videographer, and a self-absorbed comedy writer who bangs out a newsletter related to the wedding only in the most tangential possible way. I just created a whole new business model for English majors everywhere. You’re welcome.

Oh, and if you’re curious about my most famous wedding speech of all time, you can watch it here. That was definitely the high point of my life. It’s all downhill from there.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next week.

James