Life Is Not a TV Show (But Sometimes It Seems Like It)

In college, one of my roommates had some serious Truman syndrome, and it spread. Soon, we were all referencing the events of the past couple days as if they'd played out on the small screen. 

"This is an episode," someone would say. 

We all lived in a quad (a black mold-infested suite of four rooms, a bathroom and a common room)—ours was Quad 5. It was from there we drew the title of our series—simply Five. 

We came up with A plots, B plots, and C plots. In hindsight, basically all of them had to do with drinking. Like when three of us hosted a game of Edward Winehands and I puked so many places in the bathroom and spent so long cleaning it up that I forgot it was actually mine, that was a part of an episode. Or when one roommate and another friend got caught by campus security naked in the library at midnight, that was an episode too. Or when two of us got so drunk at the bar that we hopped into a strangers car and ordered they drive us back to the quads, that was definitely an episode (and no, it didn't up being an episode of Special Victims Unit). 

***

Life, however, is not a TV show.

A sharp reminder of this came when Seth and I were looking for our first house. I can talk about this now, because we did find The One™, but only after some serious heartbreak.

The market in Lincoln was (and still is) crazy. Houses commonly sold within days of being listed. Everything move-in ready was going for above asking. We even heard about one couple who bought a house sight unseen.

In our first meeting with a realtor, she made a point to tell us that we might be looking for awhile, given the state of the market and the fact that we had an average budget. She said to be prepared to move quickly and still be disappointed. 

We moved quickly, and we were still disappointed.

The house that broke our hearts: Tall, skinny, four bedroom, two bath house not far from our current neck of the woods and conveniently located by our one of our favorite restaurants, a run-down but amazing Ethiopian place. No yard or garage, but a walk-in closet in the master, a pantry, laundry on the first floor and completely ready for someone (us! Pick us! Let it be us!) to move in.

The timeline: 

• The listing went up around 9 a.m.
• We saw it at 5 p.m.
• By 7 p.m., there were already three offers on it.
• We drew up the paperwork around noon the next day. 
• I got the call at 6:05: The sellers had accepted another offer.

We'd offered well above the asking price, so I'd assumed we had a good shot. But the accepted offer was also for well over asking...in cash, waived home inspection. 

There was no way we could compete with that offer—I mean, even if I were to be ransomed, I don't think my parents have that kind of cash on hand—but I was no less devastated. I was at dinner with friends and mostly held it together until my drive home. That's when the crushing depression hit, and I spent the next day in a funk so deep I think my coworkers could actually smell it on me. 

I kept thinking about GIlmore Girls, the episode where Luke is trying to buy the Twickham House for him and Lorelai and their future family. He's all set to get it, until town weirdo Kirk comes in ready to pay for it all in the cash he's amassed working odd jobs throughout town over his lifetime. Because it's a TV show, the town elders (which are a thing because, TV show) somehow end up deciding who should get the house—and it's Luke, because they deem him more deserving, having waited years for Lorelai. 

We were Luke. The other, cash-rich, no-inspection-needing buyer was Kirk. But this is not a TV show, and there was no panel of town elders to anoint us as worthier of the property. 

***

Sometimes, though, life is kind of like a TV show. 

It was our wedding day. I was feeling good. Sure, there were some butterflies prior to walking down to the ceremony, but there had been no major freak outs.

No major freak outs...yet.

I arrived at the alter. The judge began speaking. All was going well.

Our friend read the poem we'd selected. I almost started crying, because it's a really nice poem. 

As he neared the end of the poem, though, my lovey-dovey sappy feelings were replaced by shit-fuck-shit panic—because I knew what was coming next in our ceremony, and I knew we were missing some key items.

To back it up: Having a nonreligious wedding ceremony is awesome for several reasons. One, it's short, two, people can drink during it and three, no downer Bible verses. However, a nonreligious ceremony can be challenging, because when you take out all the god...what do you do? 

We'd decided on a (really nice, as I mentioned) poetry reading and a song during the ceremony played by some talented musician friends. To avoid the awkwardness of standing there, staring at each other for the song's duration, we decided we'd write letters to each other with the intent of reading them on our one-year anniversary.

The morning of the wedding, I brought pens and paper and envelopes for that specific purpose to our venue, intending to ask our ushers to bring them down to our ceremony area as the time drew closer.

(Can you see where this is going? I bet you can see where this is going.)

I forgot to ask the ushers to bring down the letter supplies. I forgot to even tell anyone about the existence of the letter supplies.  

As the poem finished, I turned to the judge and my maid of honor in a panic. 

"I left the letter stuff up in the barn," I hissed. 

"Okay, do you want me to go get it?" my maid of honor whispered back.

I had a split second to make a decision. The barn was really just up the stairs from the ceremony, but proximity wasn't the issue. My bridesmaids and I had been lounging there all day, eating, drinking, getting ready and it was absolutely packed with everyone's crap. The letter supplies were on a bench in a plastic bag. They were probably one of 29 different things sitting on a bench in a plastic bag. My maid of honor had no idea which one was the right one.

It wasn't worth it. The whole point of writing the letters during the song was to avoid a period of awkward inactivity during the song. Sending someone to fetch the stuff would only spur a period of awkward inactivity, only without the song. 

"Never mind. Let's just nix it."

Seth nodded, affirming my decision. 

The judge began to move on:

"Well, the bride and groom were going to write letters to each other but—" here we looked at the guests guiltily. I was forcing a manic smile, trying to play it off as a cute "oopsie."

"Oh, wait, you know what?" 

Our judge took one of the sheets she'd finished reading from and tore it in half. She had a pen in her portfolio.

"Does anyone have another pen?" 

Without missing a beat, a teacher at Seth's school whipped out a pen and tossed it to him. Seth knew exactly where to look and caught it. 

And then the musicians began to play, and we wrote our letters.

Later, people asked if we'd planned it like that.

As seen on TV.