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July 25, 2006
Life Imitates... Life
Far be it from me to laugh at other people's misfortune... oh hell, who am I kidding? I'm a curmudgeon; it's what we do. And in this case, the misfortune is so metaphorically perfect that it's delicious -- not to mention that anything is funnier when it happens to crackers.
The marriage proposal that ended with a plane crash began with the bride-to-be thinking she was going on a date to the movies. But Adam Sutton, 19, had other plans.
He had convinced his high school sweetheart, Erika Brussee, 18, to take a chartered flight around the Rome area Friday. And Sutton's plan included having family members hold up a sign asking Brussee to marry him... Sutton had arranged for family members to stand on the ground below the plane's flight path holding up a tarp with the proposal written on it.
"(The tarp) was upside down when we went around, but I saw the word `marry.' Then I saw my mom waving at me, and then I knew what was happening." But her glee was short-lived. The plane crashed at the Richard B. Russell Regional Airport.
First of all, they lived -- so I can make fun of it all I want. Secondly, they're crackers; a 19 year old and an 18 year old getting engaged -- and her parents help with the proposal? I mean, I grew up in what some might consider the backwoods... but even there, had an 18 year old girl been proposed to by her boyfriend, that boy might find himself acquainted with the business end of her daddy's shotgun. (We waited till a much more "sensible" age back home... like 21 or 22.) The fact that this girl's family was aiding and abetting the effort, instead of locking the two of them up and pointing out to each of them how ridiculously too young they are for anything like this, tells you pretty much what you need to know. This couple's a divorce waiting to happen...
Which brings me to the part of the story that amuses the hell of out me. Could there be any more perfect metaphor for this impending marriage (hell, for any marriage, for that matter) than a plane crash? I mean, their lives aren't just about to go down in flames figuratively... they figured out a way to go down in flames literally too! I mean, kids, I know y'all started out a bit rough, but just keep this in mind:
You started out with a plane crash... and it's all downhill from here.
