My sister got married and I need to leave the country.

Last week I was unable to write a blog post and may only be able to sporadically update the blog in the coming weeks, since I am leaving the country. The reasons for my going away come from my sister’s wedding and the reception afterwards.

My black belt in Tae Kwon Do sister got married last Friday. Her husband asked if I would stand with him at the wedding. He apparently is as terrified of my little sis as I am. I agreed. I thought this was a simple thing to do, since I have had years of practice standing.

Then my sister mentioned that I would have to make toast. “Toast?” I asked. I know my way around a kitchen. I can make some excellent instant oatmeal. My family raves about my hamburger grilling skills, and I have yet to burn water when making tea. But why toast, I thought. Then it dawned on me. It was going to be a Peanuts ™ wedding reception. We were all going to gather around ping-pong tables, sit in lawn chairs, and eat toast, pretzel sticks and jelly beans.

My sister corrected my incorrect assumption. I was not making toast; I was making a toast, which was a development I had not anticipated. Unsure of what making a toast entailed, I Googled “making wedding toasts” and found a number of sites eager for me to purchase their book on making toasts. Chapters included “Toasting Etiquette”, “17 Beach Wedding Toasts”, “13 Humorous Toasts”, and a sampling of “14 Irish Wedding Toasts”. All for the low, low price of $19.95. I did not purchase the book for two reasons. First, it would not have arrived in time for the wedding. Second, there were approximately 734 toasts in the book and I figured if it became common knowledge that I had that many toasts, I would be invited to many weddings in order to do the toasting.

Therefore, instead of buying the book, I decided to pretend I was writing a blog post and make it a toast. This was not difficult since post and toast rhyme.

The wedding was a beautiful affair. The mother of the bride was escorted down the aisle and she cried. The bride said her vows and she cried. The groom said his vows and he cried. I want to make it clear, I did not cry. The groom only asked me to stand with him, not cry with him. So, I stood and I did not cry. If you were there and saw me wiping my face, I want to make it clear that it was hot, I was sweating, and I wiped the sweat from my face. That is all.

The reception was delightful. It was wonderful to reconnect with family that I do not get to see often. The toast went well—and by that I mean, people laughed where they should and no one threw anything at me.

This brings me to why I am leaving the country. A day after the wedding a significant number of wedding guests became ill with diarrhea, vomiting, and lingering halitosis. After a few medical tests, the diagnosis was food poisoning. The initial health department investigation indicates the suspected food was the toast.

Congratulations to my little sister on her black belt.

Just recently, my little sister tested for her Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, which is not to be confused with Karate. Karate is Japanese and means ‘open hand’; Tae Kwon Do is Korean and means (make sure you ask sis what it means before you post this). Other than the subtle difference of a few hundred miles and an entirely different language, they are very similar: spectacular kicks, ruthless punches, and loud ear splitting yells.

The test, which was being held in the middle of nowhere, started almost promptly at 5:30 pm, but apparently, the Medical Doctor was lost on her way and showed up a few minutes late. I was conflicted about this Doctor coming. Conflicted is a good psychological term meaning: having mutually inconsistent feelings. Microsoft Word suggests that I use the phrase ‘had mixed feelings’ instead of conflicted, but I like to be concise and not rattle on and on, therefore, I will stick with conflicted.

 I was glad there was going to be a doctor present in the event of any unfortunate mishap, because it was my little sister and I do not like to see unfortunate mishaps happen to her. She is my little sister and I am a bit protective. When I asked my sister about the doctor, she answered that the doctor was a friend of hers from work. This was plausible, since she works in a hospital.

The head instructor announced they were going to start with forms. One of the black belts began to say things I could not understand and then count in Korean. Counting in Korean is apparently just like counting in English, except completely different since the languages are different. While she counted, the two women who were testing for black belt moved up and down the floor, punching and blocking and kicking into the air. These kicks and punches had some crazy names, like the spinning back roundhouse kick of doom, the flying straight punch of disaster, and the whirling double whammy crescent stomping kick of death.  While doing these maneuvers they hissed and yelled a lot. I, however, did not see them filling out any forms. Then I saw the table of black belts, sitting at the front of the room, around a table, conferring and flipping through papers. It was then I understood, they were filling out the forms and the testee’s were demonstrating how frustrating and angering filling out forms can be, by punching and kicking the air, while hissing and yelling.

After filling out forms, the black belts decided to ask the testee’s questions. Many of these questions had many Korean words in them, so I have no idea what they were asking. The only phrases I caught were “yucky socky upchucky”. I can only surmise that this is why Tae Kwon Do students are barefooted. It must be that socks are so stinky that they can cause violent vomiting.

The testing session began to break up at 8 pm. Literally, break up. This was the section of the testing where the testee’s broke boards. First, they broke two separate boards at the same time, one with a punch and the other with an elbow. Next, they moved to breaking four boards in sequence and then they broke four boards, taped together, all at once. This skill, as near as I can ascertain, is important due to the high number of random attacks on people by lumberyards.

I am sure that you are all wondering if, now that my little sister has a black belt, I will continue to uphold the big brother code of ethics. The answer is—of course, I will continue to pick on my little sister, because that is what big brothers do. However, when she comes to visit, I will make sure all our socks are clean and lock up all my lumber to ensure no breakage.