I may or may not have mentioned this, but at my cousin’s wedding last spring, I caught the bouquet.

Let me preface this by saying that I think the tradition of the bouquet toss at the wedding is a beautiful one. [long ago, it was believed that certain herbs contained in a bouquet held good luck, and it was customary for the bride to present it to a special guest at the wedding.]  That said, I avoid that jettisoned bouquet like the plague. Here’s what kind of creeps me out about the whole thing. It isolates the single women into a nice little holding tank on the dance floor, as if to say: “See this spectacle you’ve witnessed today? You want that too, right? Well, you should. If you don’t, you are an anti-marriage femi-nazi!”

Your demeanor while waiting for The Toss can be loaded with implications.  Should we look like we want it, just for the sake of competition amongst females? Because I know if I catch the damn thing, that’s gonna be a long, awkward ride home. And yet — if you are uber-aggressive, you seem beyond desperate. That’s why all bouquets should be caught by the bride’s five-year-old niece, whom nobody can heckle.

When my cousin gracefully hurled her roses overhead, my heart sank when I saw it coming directly at me. I was huddling somewhere in the very back left corner and it seemed downright intentional, like she might as well have just handed them to me. If I didn’t catch it, it was going to hit me in the face.  I snatched the bouquet at the very last second and thrust it at my cousin Katie, releasing it from my grip like it was a hot coal.  Fight-or-flight kicked in and I bolted off the dance floor.

But the deed was done.  I was called back to have a stranger pull a garter up my leg with his teeth in front of my boyfriend and entire family.  I had forgotten about it until my cousin Erin posted her pictures on Facebook.

Gross.

Luckily, I am not shy.  And I was drunkity-drunk-drunk.