Today we – or I should say “I”, for I am the Bride, to Whom All Junk Mail is Addressed – received a catalog full of cheap tacky wedding merchandise.  The Red-Haired Boy and I had a good time mocking it over dinner.

The highlight – or perhaps I mean the nadir – was a cake topper with a cherubic child clad in a bridal dress and a cherubic child dressed in a tux.  Emblazoned across the base was the legend Two Hearts Become One.

Think Hummel.  ‘Nuff said.

I know some people will think this is cute, but I firmly believe that a cake topper should not be more sickeningly sweet than the cake you put it on.

“I can’t imagine how this could be more saccharine,” I said.

“They could both have golden angel wings,” said RHB.

“Oooh, wait, I know!” I exclaimed.  “It could be a music box, and when you wind it up, it rotates and plays ‘You Light Up My Life’!”

Maybe it could have a cascade of rainbow-colored fiber optic cables, too, the kind that change color in time to the music.  (Kind of like our Christmas tree.  But you didn’t hear about that from me.)

That’s an inspired thought, if I do say so myself.  If this web publishing stuff doesn’t work out for me, I bet I could make a killing parting foolish brides from their money by selling them cheap useless crap made by slave labor in China.

Two Hearts Become One is something of a theme for this catalog – including the pen stand made of two hearts, that, when you smoosh them together, become one big uber-heart with four humps and a point, like some sort of cross between a mutant four-humped camel and a stingray.  Call me crazy, but even though Kahlil Gibran gets way too much airplay at weddings, I think the boy was onto something when he said, Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.  For only the hand of Life can hold your hearts.  I want to share my heart with the Red-Haired Boy – I don’t want us all squished together like a couple of last Easter’s dried-up Marshmallow Peeps.