Showers of "Oy"

As I’ve made mention in a past article, I’m a big fan of “Seinfeld” and have watched the syndicated reruns so many times, I can quote whole episodes in my sleep. My hands-down favorite is what I call the “Hamptons Episode,” where a trip to that summer resort area by Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer involves an ugly baby, illegal lobster harvesting, a topless beach romp and the physical effects of cold pool water on the male member. (“It shrinks?” “Like a frightened turtle!”) Elaine echoes my own sentiment when she responds to this spontaneous biology lesson with, “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.”

Actually, that’s not 100% true. There are certain occasions when I would be ecstatic to sport a Mister Johnson, and it’s whenever I receive an invitation to that most dreaded of female-only festivities, the “shower.”

The origins of this four-hour form of torture are a bit vague. The word itself seems to come from the Victorian-era practice of putting gifts inside a parasol which would then be opened, “showering” the bride-to-be with largesse. Presents must have been much smaller back then, because getting crowned with a Crock Pot wouldn’t be the best way to start a life of wedded bliss, although having the bloodied guest of honor whisked away in a speeding ambulance while her bridal party starts a betting pool on whether she makes it to the wedding day would certainly relieve the tedium for this writer.

The earliest use of the word in print occurred in the June 4, 1904 edition of the “Michigan Evening Press”: “The ‘shower parties’ that through mistaken hospitality the wedded couple are forced to attend…”

What a minute. What?!

I don’t know what the hell was going on at the turn-of-the-20th-century, but I do know the only modern shower participant who’s more than happy to attend is the one walking away with all the loot. By the time the maid of honor and bridesmaids have fought it out with the bride over which hideous, overpriced dress and accessories they’ll be forced to wear in public (not to mention memorialized for all time in photos and video), they’d be just as happy to flog the little dear as fete her.

As for the guests, their fun begins with the bridal registry and the fervent hope there’ll be something left besides the “I Don’t Want to Look Cheap” salt and pepper shakers and the “There Goes My Bridgework” fine china setting. With gifts in hand, the guests are welcomed and then entertained with sophomoric shower games (although I do get a sick thrill out of seeing the bride wear the dreaded “Bow Bonnet”), served a menu that assumes all women enjoy nibbling greens and overdone salmon, and then get a ringside seat for an hour or so of “ohhing” and “ahhing” as the wife-in-training rips off the wrapping paper on a bath towel set or a toaster oven.

(Don’t even get me started on baby showers. At least towels and toasters I know about. Diaper genies, breast pumps and that disgusting plastic thingee that suctions snot out of an infant’s nose I wish I never knew about.)

But for my salad bowl and tongs set, the absolutely worst part of these segregated soirees (besides the exclusion of anyone with a “Y” chromosome) is the shower libation of choice – champagne punch. With a sickly sweetness that would send a non-diabetic into a coma, it’s usually served in small glasses so that, God forbid, none of the women become “tipsy.” Believe me, there’s not so much as a headache in the whole punch bowl.

There was a time not so long ago when “Jack and Jill” parties were in vogue, but that quickly passed. Men are no dopes. They’re not going to blow a perfectly good Saturday or Sunday afternoon kvelling over kitchen utensils or playing “Bridal Shower Bingo.”

Now that the season of showers are upon us, a trip to Stockholm to check out a sex change operation has a certain appeal yet seems a tad drastic. Maybe a cucumber, a trucker’s cap and NFL season tickets would be enough to discount me from the deluge.