“You'll be working the wedding party,” they tell me when I arrive at work that night.
That was fine with me. The couple getting married were regular customers at the little Warehouse District jazz club where I worked at the time, and I liked them both well enough.
I check the timeline, and set up the bar and the buffet. The couple arrives; the guests start to show up. But there's a hitch. Everyone's there but the officiant.
5 o' clock: no judge. 5:15: no judge. At 5:30, they call the judge at his chambers: no answer. They call his home: no answer. (This was B.C.: Before Cell.) The groom looks furious, the bride like she's ready to burst into tears.
Meanwhile, my boss is freaking out. Two regulars are paying a fortune for this event, and it's going to be a total disaster.
The solution is obvious. Feeling like some sort of pagan superhero with a secret identity, I go to my boss. When the news finally breaks through, the look on her face is almost risible.
“There is a God,” she says.
That's how it is that I got the opportunity to use what was probably the single best line of my entire wait career.
Excuse me: if I could have your attention, please.
Apparently, the judge who was going to perform the ceremony is unable to make it tonight. Fortunately, I am empowered to marry people legally in the state of Minnesota.
So: the ceremony will begin about in five minutes.
Then I'll be right around to take your drink orders.
So it is that a thoroughly secular cowan couple came to be married by a priest of Covenant of the Goddess. Yes, Nikki, there is a God.
In this case, he has horns.
So it is that I ended up getting the single best tip of my entire wait career. Well, you can't say I hadn't earned it.
As a matter of fact, later that week, I used some of that money to get this very tattoo.
But that's another story, for another night.