From: darmstro@acs.ucalgary.ca (Debby Armstrong)
Subject: Practicing for Their Honeymoon ... an Urban Legend

PRACTICING FOR THEIR HONEYMOON by Jan Harold Brunvand

When a minister tells you a story, you ought to believe it, right?

M.H. for Fort Wayne, Ind., has her doubts.  She finds it hard to
believe this racy story, even though it was told as truth by a
local minister.

A young couple, engaged to be married, had scheduled a premarital
counselling session with a minister.  But they failed to show up,
so the next morning the minister called the bride-to-be's home.

"She's in the hospital," the young woman's mother told the
minister.  "She probably wants to tell you herself why she didn't
show, though."

So the minister went to the hospital, and there he found the young
woman in traction with a broken leg and collarbone.  But the
accident had left her feeling more embarrassed than pained.

She said her parents were going out of town for the weekend, and
asked her to house sit.  She and her fiance decided that this would
be a perfect chance to "practice for their honeymoon."  So as soon
as her parents left, they set about "practising" in her parents
bedroom.

Not long afterward the phone rang.  It was her mother, in a panic. 
She had left the iron on in the basement.  Would they please turn
it off?

The fiance playfully picked her up and carried her to the top of
the basement stairs.  Both of them were still naked.  When she
switched on the lights, shouts of "Surprise!  Surprise!" came from
the basement.  Her parents were standing at the bottom of the
stairs, along with relatives, in-laws and friends.  It was a
surprise wedding shower!

The shock was too great for the fiance.  He dropped her and fled. 
She rolled down the stairs and lay there naked, while her family
gaped.  Her grandmother reached for her heart medicine.  Everyone
was too shocked to cover her.

So, the minister concluded, the couple was never legally joined. 
"The girl went crazy," he said, "and the guy left town."


