"What if it is?" I counter.
"I need a plan," he says. "If it's the fat one ... I'll say ... "Hey I forgot my cigarettes in the truck!" ... then I'll get the Hell out of there fast!"
"Brilliant!" I say.
"Course if it's the other one I'm staying," he nods.
"Absolutely," I agree.
It all started with a note left on his windshield after work at Tybee Island's favorite restaurant. Reading, "I think you're really cute. I'm here for a few days. Call me."
The problem is there were two of them ... one significantly larger than the other Bubba remembered serving day ... which one left the note?
"How'd it go?" I ask the following morning.
I don't know where it came from but Bubba had a lot of "Saint" in his lineage. He could be quiet and soft, full of humility and joy!
He also drank like a fish, smoked like a bear, laughed like a clown and loved like Jesus.
Putting his arm around me, he smiled like an Angel and says, "I was so relieved."
So for the next few weeks there was a new note on Bubba's windshield from a different admirer, each in a different handwriting, with different phone numbers requesting to meet with him.
Most were written by my daughters Kristen and Chelsea but Bubba didn't know.
It drove him crazy.
"How did I become so hot?" he asks.
"You're not hot," I reassure him. "There's just lots of desperate women in the world."
A few weeks later Bubba brings the "skinny one" to meet me.
"Really?" I whisper in his ear.
"Really," he whispers back ... Now Bubba has a way of saying words that makes them completely and utterly his own ... "Really" is one ... and it comes out slow and long with a hint of disbelief ... REEEAAA ...LEE."
Shrugging my shoulders, I am happy for him.
"Hey Rev," he asks a few months later, "will you do our wedding?"
"REEAAA...LEE?" I answer.
Of course I do.
It was quite spectacular if I say so myself.
When I ask "Who gives this Bride to be married?" ... her children gleefully scream "WE DO!" ... as if they couldn't be happier to be rid of her.
The Homily was about how marriage is like the "Road Runner" and if you want to catch love then you have to keep chasing it like Wile E. Coyote ... even if it means going over a cliff ... which is exactly what Bubba was doing.
And in the years that followed he was happy and I remained a front row participant and partner in crime with him.
I'm not certain why I'm doing an inventory of weddings I've conducted but I'm finding it quite joyous.
And today I'm especially thankful Bubba and I've spent this time together.
Wherever you're at ... whatever you're doing ... and I'm certain that it's something ... I still love you.
RRREEEAAA-LEE ... I do.
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