Shower the People with... Advice?

The thing about bridal showers is...

Ok, I didn't have a good way to finish that.  But I went to one this weekend.

KB and I are friends with a girl we'll call Erica.  (I love making fake names on here.  It's like naming a new doll or something!)

Erica and her fiance have known each other only a year and are getting married next week.  And no, they're not Mormon too.  They are in love and happy and take risks beyond my imagination, but that's for another post altogether.

So Erica's bridal shower has a theme: time of day.  Which is most ironic because Erica showed up to her own bridal shower one hour and seven minutes after the time on the invitation.  Taking CP time to another level.  But hey, it's' her day.  So we lightly teased and moved right along.

The shower was pretty traditional.  Salads and cupcakes and chocolate covered strawberries.  Games that require you to dig in your purses (did you know most of us still carry checkbooks?!?) and unscramble words like garter, groom, and clergyman.  Awkward comments about sex while the bride's mom is in the room.  Judging one another on how well you know the bride, or the groom or both.

It was the last staple of the day, however, that has kept me talking all weekend.  We got to the point I like: parting advice.  What can we encourage or share from our own experience before this momentous day?

I know I spent a good 22 years of my life not really believing the whole marriage/love/happiness deal was real... but the last years with my J-Man seem to have turned me into a sap.  I thought about the things I think when I look at my rings and conjured up something sweet and awww-worthy.  I was totally prepared, and nervous in that way you get when everyone is introducing themselves - as if I might forget my own name or something- and waiting for it to be my turn.

But two people before me, this chick (you know I only say 'this chick' when I don't like someone) points her finger at Erica and says "Do NOT be jealous"

Hold up!

Wait a minute!

You can probably imagine that J-Man laughed when I told this story.  Because if someone had tried to give me that advice I might've said "them's some fightin words."  I'm totally jealous.  In fact, yes, too jealous.  I can read into anything.  And I do read anything.  Whatevs.  J-Man has my passwords too.  The thing is, I don't read much, I just like him to know I could.  But if this chick is trying to say that I can't be a little crazy, I am not ready for that.

Crazy is part of being married, right?  You decide to live the rest of your life with someone, they've gotta give you something now and again.  I don't take out the trash.  I don't let him do my laundry.  I get a little crazy when he's around shady women.  I trust him.  I don't trust them.

I trust him also because we have an arrangement.  Yep, an arrangement.  It goes like this.  He can cheat on me once.

And I can cut his...

Oh wait, I think I was going to keep this post clean and sweet.

So anyway, the room started to erupt.  What about if he's looking at other women?  When he's holding Erica's hand?  What about if he's watching a 'movie' when she's sleeping?  What about magazines?  Oh man, it got nutty in there.  Phrases like "men will be men" and "treat him like a king" and "don't treat him like a king" were flying around the air.  KB and I were just waiting our turn to give our advice. Doodling on our game-sheets.  Elbowing each other to say "did you hear that?" Suddenly this sweet, common bridal rite of passage was a mini-war between the jealousy-is-normal and the men-are-dogs-so-kick-their-butts teams.

At some point I got to say my piece and get my aww but man oh man was it a doozy.