A Stand-up Celebrant & the Jordan Flu Game
In 1997 Michael Jordan was due to face the Utah Jazz in Game 5 of the NBA playoffs. The night before he was struck down by a flu most mere mortals would’ve succumbed to.
For me, that means drinking flat coke all weekend and binge-watching The Sopranos.
But, as we well know, MJ is MJ. So, he gets up the next morning, brushes it off, and manages to hit a lazy 38 points along with 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 1 block.
Pretty much a standard day at the office for me in my local D4 domestic b-ball team.
Now, I’m not saying I’m in the same mould as Jordan (very close), though I did experience one such wedding version of the famed ‘flu game’.
I started feeling some ancient medieval type symptoms just before Nancy-Anne and Ian’s ceremony in Woodend in August 2019.
Now, I’m not here to put any blame onto ANYONE for receiving this. It was all my fault.
Well, not really. It was a person from Sandhurst’s fault. They know who they are.
Anyway, in the 300-odd weddings I’ve done, I’ve never missed one. And will never miss one. But this got close.
This thing hit me like a steam train hauling a payload of tractors that were carrying a group of sumo wrestlers in their forklift carry thingys.
I was chomping on garlic, slurping honey, and using leaches for bloodletting.
What made matters worse is that the wedding was a hearty hour away, and I could barely lift myself off the couch to check my sausage rolls in the oven let alone officiate a wedding.
However, in a ‘Jordanesque’ effort, I got up, threw on the best rags, and dragged my way to my now destroyed Ford Futura – a literal pile of sweat dripping as I went along.
I finally arrive at the venue and wait in the car. But then, something happened; some type of adrenalin kicked in. I still didn’t feel great. But I knew that not even a Godzilla-type creature was going to stop proceedings.
I got inside the venue, set everything up and started throwing down. Just like MJ.
In fact, exactly like MJ. I was dunking. I was jacking up threes. I was dribbling (in a good way).
The ceremony went great, and was capped off by a musical performance by Nancy-Anne and Ian’s very talented entourage.
I hopped back in the car and for a brief second I thought I’d slayed this mighty sniffle.
But this son-of-a-bitch came back stronger than a powered-up Pac Man (thanks to the Kaiser Chiefs for that reference). And I spent the next week back in bed sipping on that coke and watching Tony, Silvio, Paulie and the rest of the gang in The Sopranos.
Oh btw there is a conspiracy that Jordan didn’t have the flu, but that he was poisoned with pizza by some eager Utah Jazz fans.
Is it possible I was targeted by a fellow wedding supplier’s fan with some dodgy capricciosa??
Likely. Extremely likely.