Dealing With The Wedding Registry: A Nevin Barich Blog Experience

Me and my fiancee Ramona were home the other night fiddling on our respective laptops when I noticed that a sad look came across her face.

"What's wrong, baby?" I asked.

Her reply:

No one has bought our stemware.

And thus, the hell that is known as "The Wedding Registry" had begun.

To understand this blog is to understand one simple fact: I had nothing to do with my wedding registry. Ramona and her mom handled everything. I had no input, and rightfully so. See, if it were up to me our wedding registry would've consisted of three things:

1) Money

2) Raider tickets

3) Nintendo Wii games and accessories.

You know: The essentials for all new marriages. :-)

But I wasn't involved, and so now I was home, dealing with a sad-faced future wife who was pouting because our stemware had yet to be purchased. So I, as the future loving husband, went over to her and comforted her with the following words:

What the hell is stemware?

Seriously. I had no clue.

It was a question I never should've asked. Because not only was I given a 15-minute lecture on what stemware was and why it was vital to our existence as a married couple, but I was also forced to actually go on our wedding registry site and see every single one of the items that we're asking people to buy for us.

Among them:

Glisten Truffle Pm

Vornado® Vortex Air Circulator

Calphalon Stainless Steel Ladle with Grip Anywhere Handle

Calphalon Stainless Steel Pasta Fork with Grip Anywhere Handle

Oxo Stainless Steel Fork

(sorry, no Grip Anywhere Handle)

Bissell® Lift-Off® Hybrid™ Pet Vacuum

(please note: We have no pets)

Lenox Mosaico Mattonella Accent PL

(??????)

And finally:

"Look Nevin!! Someone bought our $300 pots and pans!!" Ramona exclaimed.

$300. For pots and pans.

And that's when I realized: I was now a part of an infamous American tradition. See, my friends' wedding registries were filled with stuff that no one needed or ever used. People spent tons of money buying them things they had no room for. And now, apparently it's my turn.

But I'm struggling with certain questions. Why do we need this stuff? Where are we going to put it all? Were our lives really not be complete unless someone buys us a $32 rice bowl?

Ramona and I have been together eight years. I think we've made rice six times.

But Ramona answers all these questions the same way:

"Nev, we don't need this stuff now. But we will one day."

And I may need a kidney 40 years from now. But you don't see that on the registry!!

A few days ago, my sister Blake called and asked me the following:

Did you get the ottomons I bought you and Ramona?

Please note: I had no idea what an ottomon was, and until now -- with the writing of this blog -- I had no idea how to spell "ottomon". I had to look it up. Seriously.

Nonetheless, I'm now the proud owner of ottomons.

Along with stemware, $300 pots, and fancy steak knives.

"They cut steak, Nev!!" Ramona said.

Glad she cleared that up.

:-)

And now for this week's:

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

I love video games, have since I was a kid. But even this is a touch much for me:

A collector recently paid $17,500 for an obscure Nintendo game from 1990. The game in question is an ultra-rare, gold-colored version of Nintendo World Championships, a cartridge specially produced for use in a Nintendo-sponsored gaming contest. According to Wikipedia only 26 were created, and the guy who bought it calls it the "Holy Grail" of video game collectors.

The game itself has a time limit of just 6 minutes and 21 seconds.

That's $45.93 per second of game play.

Nice to see the economic downturn hasn't affected all of us. Jesus.