My family is not very religious most of the time. We pray at Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving dinners, and my mom’s entire side of the family excluding her parents and siblings is hardcore religious so whenever we do anything with them it’s kind of religious.
But the point is, most of the time we aren’t, but every year at Christmas time, a church in the next town over puts on a Bethlehem and it’s kind of a tradition to go. They go all out. The building is massive, and they’ve got it all decked out. There’s animals and stalls and everyone is in costume and in character. When you get there, they give you some pennies and you can go and barter for cool little trinkets, and there’s other more expensive things you can buy with your own money. And they have the best apple cider. All in all, it’s pretty cool.
But anyway. We go every year, bundled up in hats and scarves and mittens, and have a good time. We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, and my mom talks about going when she was a kid.
I’m going to mention again that everyone is massively in character, especially the really super hardcore religious adults. Because this is an important fact.
Every year since I was about thirteen or so, there’s been this one lady who worked at a stall selling ponchos (I have, like, three. They’re really cool). She was probably there before that, but I was thirteen when she started trying to barter for me to marry her son, who was also about thirteen.
“What a pretty little thing. I think you’d make a very good wife for my son. These are your parents? I’ll give you six goats for your daughter’s marriage to my son.”
Her son, meanwhile, is in the “shop” behind her looking absolutely mortified and like he’d rather be anywhere else than there, and I’m pretty sure I probably looked just as embarrassed.
My parents gave her some sort of excuse, like it wasn’t enough goats or they weren’t ready to marry me off yet or something, and we moved on.
The next year we’re back again, and come up near to the same stall.
“Ah! You’re back again! Have you married your daughter off yet? I can up my offer to nine goats and three chickens for your daughter to marry my son.”
Somehow she remembered the exact people she’d tried to buy their daughter off of for an entire year? So my parents are refusing her offers again and me and the son are trading embarrassed looks and we go on our way.
And then it happens again. And again. And again. Each and every one of the last six years this lady has tried to buy me in goats to be her son’s wife.
A couple years ago when we were waiting in line to get inside my mom jokingly said that they should accept this year and see what she’d do and I completely refused because it was mortifying enough as it was.
One year we brought my friend with us and we’re waiting outside and my sister was like “Are you gonna sell Kee this year?” and my dad was like “Maybe if there’s enough goats” and my friend was confused as heck and I was like “This lady tries to buy me to marry her son every year. I told you that” and she’s like “Yeah but I didn’t think this was a thing that actually happened” and she was still skeptical and by the time my parents had finished refusing the lady’s offer, she’s killing herself laughing and then spent the next few months telling me I couldn’t look at guys because I already had a fiancée.
Anyway, it happened again this Christmas and the son has somehow gotten almost ridiculously attractive since last year. The speech this year had something to do with how I was far too old to not have a husband yet, and the son and I just rolled our eyes at each other as his mom tried to barter with my parents for me.
This year’s offer was twenty six goats and nine chickens. My sister looked up how much goats are worth, and was mad our parents didn’t sell me so she could have sold the goats and gotten $2000-$8000 for them. My dad says they’re waiting out on an offer of a camel. My brother thinks they should have it more than once a year so he can get more apple cider.
Now I’m back at uni, and in my first psych class of the semester the guy sitting beside me looked really familiar.
As in his-mom-tries-to-buy-me-with-goats-every-Christmas familiar.
We introduced ourselves before class started and I sat there for a couple minutes readying to make a total fool of myself in case I was wrong before turning to him again.
“This is going to sound really weird if you aren’t who I think you are, but by any chance does your mom try to buy you a wife with goats every Christmas?”
His friend gives me a weird look as he walks past me to sit on the other side of him, but he’s definitely putting the pieces together.
“That’s you? Bethlehem in [city name], right? God, my mom is so mortifying.”
And we both kinda laugh and meanwhile his friend is giving us both weird looks now because apparently he didn’t know that his friend’s mom was trying to buy him a wife using livestock.
So he turns to his friend and is like
“Oh, I forgot to introduce you. Danny, this is my fiancée, Kee.”
And I kinda rolled my eyes and was like
“I’m not actually your fiancée. Your mom hasn’t offered my parents enough goats yet. But apparently my dad will sell me for a camel.”
And he laughed and shook his head like
“I am not telling my mom that. I don’t want to see what she has planned for if your parents ever accept.”
So yeah. His friend was really confused by that point and we explained it to him and it turns out he’s pretty cool and we’re Facebook friends now and hang out in psych classes. Apparently his mom only ever tries to buy me for him and she and my mom had gone to the same church growing up which is why she can always pick us out.
So yeah. That’s the story of how some lady tries to use goats to buy me to be her ridiculously attractive son’s wife every Christmas, and how he’s in my class and we’re friends now.
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