I don’t know what goes through your mind at weddings. Maybe you’re critiquing the dresses or trying to guess the menu or betting how long the marriage will last. When I go to weddings I’ve got only one thing on my mind: don’t screw this up.

This fear was drilled deep inside me as a child two different ways. The first was my dad turning around every time our van pulled into the parking lot for a wedding or funeral to warn us kids that if we fooled around and ruined this for everyone, we would get The Spanking of a Lifetime when we got home. The other, of course, was America’s Funniest Home Videos.

The rational part of my brain knows that it’s nearly impossible to screw up a wedding as a guest. But then I look around and see confusing place settings and open flames and delicate centerpieces, and I start to sweat.

I spent this past Saturday sweating. Deserae and I attended her friend Kelsey’s wedding, and it was NICE. To get to the wedding, we had to walk through the perfect reception hall, past the perfect cake and down a perfect, tree-lined path. When we got to the ceremony (which was in front of a perfect, little lake), I saw that Deserae’s mom had saved us a seat as close to the front as a person could get without having given birth to the bride.

I took my front-and-center aisle seat and got busy trying not to ruin everything. For the first 10 minutes, that plan worked to perfection.

Then the bee came.

This is a good time to explain that Deserae is allergic to bees. I know this, not because I’ve ever seen her get stung, but because every time a bee comes within 10 yards of her, she loses her mind and screams, “I’M ALLERGIC TO BEES!” After the bee leaves, she explains to all the alarmed people in the area that if you’re allergic to bees and get stung, you could die.

Anyways, this particular bee was a monster. It was somewhere between the size of a normal bumble bee and a ping pong ball. Also, it did not do normal bee things. Ten minutes after the ceremony started, it began slooowwwwwwly moving up and down the rows, buzzing inches in front of people’s faces. It was hilarious watching the reaction of sheer terror when someone saw the bee, followed by the discomfort of realizing they couldn’t do anything because the number one rule at a wedding is DON’T RUIN THE WEDDING. I could see the appeal for the bee.

The bee finally got to our row and stopped directly in front of me and Deserae. Deserae grabbed my arm and nearly bruised it from squeezing so hard because SHE IS ALLERGIC TO BEES. Sensing fear, the bee hovered perfectly in place a foot from our noses and stared. We stopped breathing. I gripped my program, prepared to defend my bride.

Neither of us moved a muscle because 15 feet in front of us, two perfect people were getting married next to a perfect lake, and so help us, we were not going to be the ones to ruin it. The bee stared for ten full seconds, then did something that I did not realize until that moment that bees did.

IT POOPED.

In midair! While staring at us! I know that you don’t believe me, but Google it. Try “do bees poop?” I’ll wait. It was the most perfect form of intimidation I’ve ever seen.

Shortly after the bee proved his point, he flew away. We breathed again. I had stared down my biggest fear (ruining the wedding) and Deserae stared down hers (death by bee). We emerged victorious.

Until the bee returned five minutes later.

I’m guessing that he got tired of no one else giving him quite the reaction that we did. This time, he buzzed a few inches closer to our faces. My grip tightened on the program. I felt like Kennedy with his hand on the red button during the Cuban Missile Crisis. One wrong move by Russia, and…

Russia made its move.

The bee charged for Deserae’s face.  Without hesitating, I swung with all my might.

There was a loud “CRACK!” and the bee went flying. You know that satisfying feeling you get when you hit a baseball with the sweet spot of a bat? That’s what I felt when my program connected with the bee.

That feeling lasted for exactly .1 seconds. Because my powerful swing hit the bee directly into the hair of the person sitting in front of me, which just so happened to be THE MOTHER OF THE BRIDE.

I gasped. Deserae gasped. Half of our section gasped because, again, I was front and center and the bee was basically the size of a ping pong ball. For one terrifying second, the bee buzzed around in poor Mrs. Geiger’s hair. She reached back to brush it out—OHNONONO PLEASE DON’T PUT YOUR HAND BACK THERE—and it flew away.

I looked at Deserae and started laughing. She started laughing. I sneaked a peek over my shoulder, and the little kid behind me was covering up his laugh, overjoyed that he was not the one who had ruined the wedding.

The more I thought about how improbable the shot was, the more I laughed, until tears started streaming down my face. Then I imagined the scene from the perspective of everyone in my section. They had just witnessed a guy whack an unsuspecting bee into the hair of the mother of the bride, then laugh about it like a maniac. If I had not ruined the wedding with the hit, I certainly did with the laughing. That made me laugh even harder.

I finally regained control during the “you may kiss the bride” part. Then the happy couple walked down the aisle and probably noticed the emotional guy with tears in his eyes because of their beautiful wedding. We were dismissed, and I walked down the perfect, tree-lined path to the reception, half expecting the mother of the bride to meet me with a baseball bat. But that didn’t happen. Back at the reception, everyone gushed about the weather and the maid of honor speech and the cake and just how perfect everything was.

I guess it’s harder to ruin a wedding than I thought.

LIFE LESSON #65

Never let a bee use a wedding to boss you around.