An Open Letter To Those I May Have Wronged

To Whom It May Concern,

Hi! Micah Hart here. You may remember me from such discussions as, "You are having your wedding during football season? What is wrong with you!" and "It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever get married on a weekend when Texas is playing!"

Guess what? All those times I was giving you grief about making me miss important sporting events for your wedding...I was totally kidding. Honest! I never meant anything by it.

That reminds me - on a completely, entirely unrelated in all ways shapes and forms note, Hilary and I have set a tentative date for our wedding.

When is it you ask? Oh, you don't care for those trivial details. Just know that it will be a lovely ceremony held in front of our family and friends. We've even secured the services of a rabbi, who we are very excited abo-

I'm sorry? You really want to know the date? Jeez, awfully nosy, aren't you? Fine. But consider this first. What exactly constitutes a "date"? Aren't days, hours, minutes, etc, all devices that exist only in the human construct and not in nature? Isn't it true that the actual "date" of something is, as Kant said, just an arbitrary notation of the overall passing of time, a way for us to separate moments and experiences into separate file cabinets in our minds?

Oh, you don't care. Sorry for trying to enlighten you a little. So, that date you were asking about. You are totally going to laugh when you hear this...it's September 13th, 2008.

Say...is that during football season? OMG. How did we miss that? Whooo boy, is my face red. Talk about an overlooked detail! Ah well, it's already in place, it'd be silly to move it now, right?

Pardon? You say I wrote a column stating no one should ever, ever, EVER get married during football season? Yeah right. It'd be pretty dumb of me to write that and then set a wedding date during that exact portion of the calendar (the weekend of the Texas-Arkansas game, to be exact). I mean, come on, what am I, an idiot? I defy you to find any proof of that.

Oh? It's right here? Man, you are a savvy Internet-surfer, I'll give you that.

Well you know what? Big deal. So what if I wrote a column stating you should never get married during college football season and then completely reneged on it?

It's not like I wished unkind things upon the people who did it.

I'm sorry? You have a quote from the column in question?

"Three years running, a cousin of mine has gotten married during the holiest day of the year: the Texas-OU football game.

I hope their first child has webbed feet."

Hmmm. Well, obviously I meant no harm by...ok, you got me. That was in pretty bad form. But in my defense, I thought there was no WAY this would ever come back to bite me in the rear.

I guess we can chalk this one up to what my grandfather has always said about his relationship with my grandmother: "I have my say; she gets her way."

Or in this case, "I whine and complain about all the grief everyone will give me if I get married on a football weekend so please let's do it at another time please please please; she gets her way."

I suppose it does me no good to explain that Hilary's father's business requires him to work every weekend from April to September, and his "I want to be there for my daughter's wedding" trumps my "I wrote a column detailing the evils of football season weddings and people are going to laugh at me" card.

And I imagine I only earn a few points back to my side if I say hey, at least it's not during March Madness! Right? Anyone?

(silence)

Oh well. At least my first child's webbed feet will make him/her an excellent swimmer.

Sincerely,
Micah Hart