The following are two excerpts from issues of the CAPA Times:

A “Squirrely” Wedding
Cheri Thurston

   In the last issue of the CAPA Times, I wrote about the problems I encountered when my accordion lost a screw just before I was to play at my niece’s wedding. I’m happy to report that when I played at CAPA reporter Samantha Prust’s wedding, my accordion worked just fine.
   It was one of the only things that worked just fine.

   The wedding reception was held in my backyard, and after eight hours of set-up, I ran upstairs to rest for ten minutes before I dressed for the wedding. That’s when I heard a string of, well, not the nicest language in the world coming from the backyard. It was my husband, and he was clearly not happy.
   I raced downstairs. “A squirrel got into the wedding cake!” he fumed.
   “No…,” I said.
   But, yes, it had. There was a round hole two inches wide and two inches deep on one side of the cake where the audacious squirrel had feasted. It had also attacked the back of the cake and mangled an area five inches wide and three inches high.
   Because the cake had black dots on it as part of the decoration, there were also black footprints all over the white tablecloth and up the umbrella pole, where the squirrel had scrambled to escape my husband. It was not a pretty sight.
   Instead of resting, I got to work on the cake. I cut out all the squirrel-attacked areas, stole spider mums from the table arrangements, and stuck them into the holes in the cake. I pulled globs of frosting from hidden areas, trying to cover up holes. I arranged napkins artfully (I hoped) over the squirrel footprints. I tried not to think about my brother, an epidemiologist who is always telling me about the dangers of diseases spread by animals. (I did try hard to remove any trace of cake touched by the squirrel.)
   Then my husband and I had to take turns guarding the cake so that the squirrel, who was lurking hungrily nearby, didn’t attack again.
   I finally raced to the nearby park where the wedding was to be held, said hello to the guitarist, and started playing our 20-minute pre-wedding set as people arrived to sit in the blazing sun (around 100 degrees), melting.
   Then the officiant whispered “problems” and told us to play longer. We started over.
   It turned out that the maid of honor had left her dress in a town twenty minutes away. Someone had gone to fetch it, but there was a power outage, and all the traffic lights were off, snarling traffic. She was not going to be back for at least 45 minutes.
   What to do? People were bound to start passing out after another 45 minutes in the sun. Luckily, one of the bridesmaids had brought along four extra black cocktail dresses. (She hadn’t been sure which dress she would wear.) The maid of honor started trying them on and found one that fit. What to do about her flipflops? Someone else kicked off her own heels, saying, “Here, try these.” They fit. (The maid of honor, like Samantha, is one of those people who can wear just about anything and look great.)
   Finally, the processional began. The bride looked beautiful. The maid of honor looked beautiful. The bridesmaids and the flower girl all looked beautiful. The groom and the groomsmen all looked handsome. The officiant started the ceremony. Shortly thereafter, her microphone stopped working. Nobody could hear a darn thing.
   And the reception? There was no DJ providing dance music. He had fallen down and broken not one but both wrists the day before.
   Despite it all, everyone had a great time, and it was certainly a wedding that people will remember. Best of all, no one came down with any squirrel-borne diseases, to my vast relief.

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