On the Lunacy of the Groom’s Cake – UW63

This is a reprint of the letter from the editor in Unwinnable Weekly Issue Sixty-Three. You can buy Issue Sixty-Three individually now, or purchase a one-month subscription to make sure you never miss an issue!

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Hi there,

I am going to keep this one brief. I am getting married this weekend and it feels like there are a million things that have to be done between now and then. The rational portions of my brain dispute that. They are certain we are in good shape, that there isn’t a lot left to take care of, that everything is proceeding at a good pace.

That’s weddings in a nutshell, I think. Rational thought being drowned out by instinctual panic and chaos.

I’m not talking about the state of marriage. I am excited to marry Daisy. Never been so sure of a decision in my life.  I love that girl.

No, I am talking about the circus that is the wedding celebration and its outlying events, like rehearsal dinners and bridal brunches. Compared to many weddings I’ve been privy to, I think Daisy and I have done a good job of keeping things small, low key and reasonable.

Yet, every few hours I find myself compelled to pace, to run through details I know are already sorted out. To make sure nothing is falling through the cracks.

Then there’s the creeping tide of madness that is slowly infecting everyone around us. This is a real thing. You unmarried people will scoff, but I feel like MacReady in John Carpenter’s The Thing. People I’ve known for years have started acting strangely. The cadence of their speech has changed. I suspect they may eat me before this is all over.

Take, for instance, one friend, who asked me this afternoon, “Is there going to be food and booze at the reception?”

Take a second, let that one sink in for a minute.

Now granted, I’ve been to some weird wedding receptions but while I’ve heard of some that didn’t have alcohol, like my dear friend Richard Clark’s, I have never heard of one that didn’t involve some kind of food.

Speaking of food, let us pivot to dessert. Have you ever heard of a groom’s cake? Because I fucking haven’t. Neither has Daisy. The both of us have racked our brains trying to recall a wedding we’ve been to – collectively numbering in the dozens – that had this mythological delicacy present and come up empty.  My mom, who has probably been to more weddings that Daisy and I combined, thinks it is a fruit cake but can’t recall ever encountering one.

Over the summer, a certain segment of the internet convinced itself that it had slipped into a parallel dimension because they remember the Berenstain Bears as being the Berenstein Bears. I think there is some kind of extra-dimensional shenanigans going on here, but it has nothing to do with cartoon bears. It has everything to do with goddammed groom’s cakes.

If I’ve been to your wedding and you tell me you had a groom’s cake, I’ll tell you right now, I refuse to believe you.

Daisy and I are getting married. Everyone keeps telling us that it is our special day. If that’s the case, maybe we can collectively rip a hole in the time/space continuum and get us back to the dimension we came from.

One blissfully free of groom’s cakes.

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Seriously, though, this weekend is going to be great. If you’re reading this and will be there, I can’t wait to see you. If you won’t be there, that’s a bummer – we’ll do the high five thing the next time we meet.

We’ve got some fun stuff for you in this issue. Matt Marrone goes to church…to stalk one of his favorite musicians. Kaitlin Tremblay discusses how Silent Hill and Resident Evil work together to show the horror of being human. Jane Riley returns to the madness and ecstasy of Salty Bet after two years to find out what its continued existence means. Finally, Daisy (the adventurer, no relation to my bride-to-be) deals with her new foe (or does she?) in the latest installment of Gus Mastrapa’s Dungeon Crawler.

Have a great weekend!

Stu Horvath,
Jersey City, New Jersey
September 29, 2015