We Thought Eloping Would Be A Cakewalk…

…little did we know!

We got engaged just to stop the nagging from our parents. Then, the incessant, insipid questions started.

Do you have a wedding date?

Who is going to throw your bachelor/bachelorette party?

Where are you going on your honeymoon?

When are you going to have kids?

All these questions were asked by friends and relatives with smiles so sickeningly sweet that you wanted to bitch slap every last one of them.

Barbara, my fiancée, being quite polite, managed to provide monosyllabic answers while keeping same smile plastered on her face for all these interrogatories. I, on the other hand, began having trouble hearing what people were actually saying; it was as if their voices were being spoken underwater. Saying “Huh” or “Could you say that again” repetitively did not discourage them from persisting in peppering me with their bourgeois questions.

Fighting for our very souls, we decided to elope. Research at the local library led us to choose Elkton, Maryland, known as the elopement capital of the northeastern seaboard. You could go down to city hall on one day, fill out a form, and get married the next — no blood tests or witnesses needed. Just 25 dollars, cash on the…