I Do ... With a Difference

By Kaysoon Khoo

If you’ve quite made up your mind to get married, be grateful you’re not in living in Persia in days gone by. Your exchange of vows would not have been something as simple as exchanging rings and saying “I do”. Or cutting a cake and being toasted with champagne. Back in those bad old days when folks hadn’t heard of the worldwide web nor rock n’roll, they did things a little differently. Perhaps the word you have to watch out for is not “different”. It’s “little”. The difference is actually not that little. I was just preparing you for the jolt.

Imagine standing with your intended life partner before your family, your guests and the officiating priest. Then imagine the latter asking you to roll up your sleeves while he whips out a mean-looking razor which gleams in the lamplight like a prognostication of doom. You wonder for a moment whether he’s going to pare his nails, but he’s not. Instead, he asks both of you to roll up your sleeves.

While everyone watches in breathless, morbid anticipation, he slits your forearms and catches your blood in a chalice held in readiness for that purpose. Then he asks both of you to drink the sanguine refreshment in the chalice. Every last drop of it. It doesn’t make the least difference to the ghoul that you tell him you’re not related to Dracula or Nosferatu, and that imbibing human life-force is not on your daily agenda. You still have to drink each other’s blood to pledge your troth. It is the custom. Disobey, and the gods will curse your union. More likely, there’ll be no union and both of you will be condemned to celibacy. If, however, your folks insist that the marriage proceeds, compulsion will be applied to make you drink. Your jaws will be pried apart and the amber liquid poured down your throats.

The above is just ONE weird marriage custom which was found acceptable in times gone by. Read about the others and feel your hairs stand on end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kaysoon Khoo
• Release date: Jun 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311681706

Kaysoon Khoo

All the world's a comedy stage and each must play a clown. We're none of us totally sane. Actually, there's NO such thing as total sanity. You can't even define it. So laugh while you can. It doesn't cost a bleeding cent and you get your emotional rocks off. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? Circumstance doesn't always turn out the way you want it to and chance is a bitch, more often than not. Having said this much, I don't have to explain why I write the way I do. I'd like to think that what I churn out is stuff you'll either love or loath. No halfway house, please. My life has always vacillated between extremes. And if we ever meet, give me a warm handshake -- or give me sufficient warning that you're going for my throat. I'll be publishing more madness on Smashwords as often as I can. And I'll be churning out and uploading more and more until that glorious day when they come to take me away.

Book preview

I DO ... WITH A DIFFERENCE

by

KAYSOON KHOO

Copyright 2014 Kaysoon Khoo

A Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

If you’re lucky in marriage, you learn what matrimonial bliss is. If you’re not, you learn a darned good lesson.

( from VINEGAR AND SPICE by Kaysoon Khoo )

So, you’ve finally decided to take the leap and jump the broom, have you? (Jumping the broom was one of the quaint old marriage customs our forebears practiced when life was simpler, and people were simpler too.) Well, all the best. Countless millions have made a success story out of it and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.

While you’re planning all the myriad details that’ll go towards making the big day a