The Pegster

Weddings. A time of joy and tears, of love and rejoicing. A time of drunken electric sliding and groomsmen a’fighting.

Just kidding. The wedding I went to this past weekend didn’t have the electric slide.

I took a girlfriend of mine as a date to a wedding this weekend in Long Beach. I thought about taking a guy friend but on second thought, I decided against it. While the guys in my life are wonderful surrogate boyfriends, they ain’t the real deal and I wanted someone else to toast champagne with and make goofy faces at as I flung my arms in the air to the “YMCA!” song.

It was during cocktail hour, however, that the real treat came in the form of a sassy woman in her 60s in a bright pink dress, waving a glass of chardonnay in one hand and waving the other hand in colorful gestures to accompany her enthusiastic speech. Peggy. The Pegster, as I would later affectionately call her in the ladies restroom. But I digress.

Peggy sat down next to my friend and I and as soon as proper introductions had been made said, “So why don’t you ladies have a fella?”

I explained that I just wanted a fun date to the wedding, but before I could finish, Peggy leaned in close and said, “Do you want to know how to get a man?”

My friend and I exchanged a quick look and did an awkward sort of nod. Sure.

Peggy lifted her chin up high and said, “Well, first thing. You gotta do the Slut Face.”

Peggy then gave me the biggest smile she could muster and counted slowly to five. One thousand…two thousand…three….

I shifted in my seat. I couldn’t avoid those eyes staring at me, that wide smile.

“Uh, Peggy. Don’t you think that’s an awful long time to do the Slut Face?”

She ignored me and flipped her hair the other way, saying “And then, when you’re done with the Slut Face, you flip your hair like this”—and she flipped again, that wild red bob of her’s—“and you look the other way. That’s how you do it.”

She went on, later, to discuss all sorts of other rules and tricks and ways of the dating warrior. After a few drinks, I declared I’d attempt the Slut Face, but all I could do was smile at the cute guy in the blue tie and say excuse me as I walked past him. I am not even sure if I go to the two-thousand count.

But later, we danced and he didn’t mind when I stole a bit of his wedding cake, and teased me about being an LA Girl. So I suppose we all have our own set of rules…