“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.