The Lollipop Guild

There are many things that I will always remember about my wedding day. My beautiful bride-to-be, all my friends and family. How sunny and nice it was (maybe a bit on the warm side, it was August and I was wearing a tux). That I got "my own" chocolate cake.

And of course, the betrayal of my closest friends.

Ok, so that's a bit overboard. It's actually quite funny, and has given us two great stories. The first is "Cake's Day Out", which will have to wait for another time. This is the story of the Lollipops.

Every groom should fully expect to be pranked I guess. I should have been more alert and vigilant. But my friends were sneaky, determined, and feeling very playful I guess.

I expected the car decorations. Everyone does that, it's practically a required part of the marriage ritual. But I did not expect to find all those lollipops in my hotel room.

Rewinding a bit...

The culprits were Travis and Stephanie Noe, Aaron Janssen, Shannon Dyer, and my own little sister Katie (Hamborg at the time). I don't know who's idea it was, but they all played their roles. One of them (Steph, I believe) went into Carma's purse to find our room key. I think I may have told Aaron which hotel we were staying at, clearly without thinking or being suspicious.

However, when the crew arrived at the hotel, they were unable to get the room number from the front desk, much to their frustration. They started to estimate how many hotel rooms there were...it was well over a hundred. Then, walking around the building, they realized there was a whole other wing they hadn't accounted for. The odds were stacked against them, and they didn't have a whole lot of time.

Not wanting to give up, Travis entered the hotel via an end door, and thought to try the key on a few doors on each floor just to see if he would get lucky. He didn't get very far (only three doors tried, I think) before one surprised him and turned green. They had found our room.

So, they put about 50 lollipops everywhere in the room. In the towels, the pillowcases and sheets, and in our suitcase. I must admit here they could have done much worse, for which I'm grateful they didn't.

Later on, they made a "confession" tape describing these events for posterity. I hope I still have that somewhere.

So, Carma and I discovered a bunch of lollipops. The next day we were to have our gift opening, at which would be our friends yearning to know how well the lollipop gig went over (and dying to tell us their story as well). However, we decided to concoct a little tale for them that went something like this:

"You guys will never believe what happened last night! When we got to the hotel (in full wedding garb), they decided to upgrade us their "Honeymoon Suite"! It had a jacuzzi and everything! Very awesome!"

To which they looked rather surprised and taken aback. I could see the thoughts, "Oh no! Someone else will find all the lollipops!" It was great. But then of course I had to let them off the hook.

"Or, I could just tell you instead that we found a crapload of lollipops everywhere."

******

Fortunately, that's not quite the end of the story. You see, Aaron got married a couple years later. Carma and I certainly wanted a shot at revenge, and Aaron knew it. He was very careful not to tell ANYONE where he was staying that night, and took all sorts of precautions.

Which was fine, we were determined, and even better, we knew where he lived. We got his house keys from his brother, and Trav and Steph joined us for a bit of Lollipopping. We had over 100 lollipops, and we spread them all throughout the house. In the closets, in the washing machine, the freezer, garage, couch cushions, and anywhere else that seemed like a good idea at the time. Then in his basement, we filmed "The Denial". With lollipops in our mouths, sitting in his basement, we claimed to the video camera to have had no involvement whatsoever. I'm sure we were convincing.

We returned to the wedding festivities, with lollipops in our mouths. For some reason, this made Aaron nervous and ask "What did you do?" We told him he'd find out soon enough.

I think he was still finding lollipops over a year later. It may have taken Holly awhile to forgive us.