Yes. Yes, I Do

(August 31, 2017)

2: Wedding Trip!

9:50 AM: The talk with Mr. and Mrs. Pines had gone on longer than Dipper had anticipated. At last they reached a point of agreement, though, and Dipper and Mabel walked back to the Shack.

"How'd it go?" Wendy asked as they walked in.

"Well, we're in one piece," Mabel said cheerfully. "Hey, Tripper! Let's go toss some sticks!"

"Don't be late," Dipper warned her. "We'll probably start by like a quarter after."

"Plenty of time!" Mabel said. "I'm gonna drive Soos and Melody over, and Teek will meet us there." She and the dog went outside.

"You ready?" Dipper asked Wendy.

"Yep. Do I look OK?"

"You look fantastic. It's ten to. Let's get a move on."

Despite Dipper's and Wendy's reassurances that they wanted everyone casually dressed and comfortable, Alex and Wanda insisted on dressing up. Well, at least Wanda did. Alex just gave Dipper an apologetic sorry but what are you gonna do? glance. "Meet you there, then," Dipper had said. "Grunkle Stan will drive you over to City Hall."

So, OK, he and his fiancée were dressed the way they wanted—Wendy in ushanka, green plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and comfortable old boots—with mud stains, even—and Dipper in trucker hat, red tee shirt, blue vest, blue cargo shorts, white athletic socks, and blue sneakers. And though they hung around for several minutes, finally they figured they had just enough time to get to City Hall if they left immediately. With luck, Wendy said as they walked out to the Shack parking lot, it would be a quick service, and after they stayed around after the ceremony for a while to talk to the guests, they could, again with luck, get on the road for Crescent City by one PM.

At least it was a beautiful day, clear with just a few scattered harmless cumulus clouds sailing over, the temperature in the mid-seventies. Dipper took a deep breath of the fresh air and heard the familiar drumming of woodpeckers off in the forest. A couple of squirrels were playing in the empty parking lot—leaping and chasing, wrestling with each other—but they scampered up a pine as Dipper and Wendy came close.

"Let me drive?" Dipper asked as they paused at her car.

"Asserting your manhood already?" Wendy asked. "You gonna turn all macho on me today man?"

With a smile, Dipper replied, "No, I'll cheerfully admit you're the better driver, but I'll also admit I feel antsy, and driving will take my mind off it."

Wendy opened the driver's door for Dipper. "Antsy, huh? Not gonna chicken out on me at this late date, are you, dude?"

Dipper grinned. "Never in a million years."

Wendy handed over her keys. "OK. Here you go. Wait until after we're married if you're gonna hit any pedestrians! Maybe the cops would let us share a cell or some deal."

Dipper took the keys, then got behind the steering wheel of Wendy's Green Machine, and he started the engine as, beside him, Wendy fastened her seat belt. Before putting the Dodge Dart in reverse, Dipper advised, "Take your last look at the Shack as a single girl."

"So long, old Shack! Thanks for getting us together," Wendy said, giving the Mystery Shack a goodbye salute.

After backing and turning, carefully, Dipper drove them to town, obeying the speed limit, and at the first intersection, he stopped at a red light, did a double-take, and groaned, "Aw, no!"

"Dude, just roll with it," Wendy said. She shook her head, but she chuckled a little at the bright yellow fabric banner that someone—likely Deputy Durland—had strung up from light pole to light pole at the intersection. In bright red hand-drawn letters, it read, 8/11! CONGRATULATIONS TO DIPPER AND WENDY AND MABEL AND DIPPER. Something that looked like a manhole cover probably was intended to be a drawing of a birthday cake, and two lumpy light bulbs were most probably wedding bells.

But the lettering was the most amateurish thing. The inscription was far too long for the banner, so each word was a little smaller than the one before, and the ipper of the final Dipper not only shrank in letter size but also at the end curled upward into a kind of tail. When the light changed to green, Dipper drove under the banner, hunching down and hoping that Soos hadn't scheduled a parade through town or anything.

At least the sidewalks didn't look particularly crowded. Nobody yelled congratulations or made embarrassing jokes at the tops of their voices. Dipper deliberately took the back route to their destination.

Then at a dead end, he made a left turn, drove for one more block, and turned right into the parking lot behind the City Hall—curiously vacant. No cars there at all. An asphalt desert. Wendy muttered, "What in the world?"

"Don't know," Dipper said, but as they got out of the car, they saw why.

With a loud groan, Wendy said "Oh, no, this can't be happening! You gotta be freaking kidding me!"

Because orange traffic cones blocked off the walks to the building's doors, and yellow DO NOT CROSS plastic tape surrounded the whole City Hall. About a dozen identical small white computer-printed notices on aluminum stands had been stuck in the lawn on either side of all the walkways. Dipper leaned over and read aloud, "City Hall will be CLOSED 8/11 to be fumigated for insect infestation." There was a phone number to call for further information. He took out his phone and tapped in the number.

After three rings, a woman who sounded harried and overworked answered: "Gravity Falls Civic Information, this is Lilian, how may I help you?"

"Hi," Dipper said, trying to keep frustration out of his voice. After all, he told himself, this wasn't the lady's fault. Probably. "This is Dip—uh, Mason Pines. My fiancée Wendy Corduroy and I have a ten o'clock appointment to be married at City Hall, but we just found out—"

In an impatiently brusque tone, Lilian cut his explanation short: "Sir, Gravity Falls City Hall will be closed through the weekend because of mandatory pest-control treatment. What was your name again?"

Tamping down his irritation, Dipper repeated the information. "Pines and Corduroy," he heard Lilian mutter. "Let me find you on the calendar. Pines, Corduroy, Pines, Corduroy—ten AM. Yes, all right, I see it here. Hold on and let's fix this. Just a moment. I can re-schedule your appointment for . . . let me see . . . Monday's a holiday . . . nothing on Tuesday . . . I can slot you in on Wednesday at . . . four-fifteen PM."

"We can't do that," Dipper said. "We'll be away at college in California by then. Could a judge just maybe meet us—"

"Just a moment. I have to put you on hold because I have another call."

Dipper took advantage of the pause to tell Wendy what Lilian had said. Wendy rolled her eyes. "Dude, that's crazy! Just random pest control? Don't they have to schedule these things?"

"Don't know, but this lady says—hello? Hello?" Dipper realized the line had gone dead. "I just got cut off. Wait, I'll try something." He hung up and dialed Stan. "Hi, kid," Stan said. "Look, Wanda took a while to fuss over her make-up, we'll be there in—"

"Don't bother," Dipper said. "Looks like it's off. The City Hall is closed because it's being sprayed for bugs or something—"

"What?"

Dipper explained again.

"That sounds nuts to me. You went through the routine, you scheduled the wedding . . .. Hang on," Stan said. "Let me make a couple calls, see if maybe there's something I can do about this, I know some people. Just hang loose."

"We'll come back to the Shack, I guess," Dipper said.

"Naw, just give me about five minutes. I may be able to make arrangements."

As they sat in the car, Wendy said, "Dip, I suppose we could drive out of the Valley and find somebody to do it for us. Really, I think the license is good for anywhere in the state."

"But we've got people coming," Dipper said. "Your dad, my parents and grunkles. Especially Mabel! We'll upset people, and it'll be a big mess."

"So we'll just take off for the college house and, you know, just act like we're married until next weekend. Then on Friday afternoon or Saturday we can drive back into Oregon and get married."

"Yeah, but—we got so close! After we held back and waited for years! And Dad will be OK with that idea, but you know your dad and my mom will have a fit."

"Dad's pretty conventional," Wendy said. "But in an emergency like this, he'll come around. And it would be just for a few days. Your mom—"

The phone rang, interrupting them. When Dipper answered it, he heard Stan sighing. "Kid, I tried. The trouble is fire bugs."

In any other town in America, that would mean the City Hall was infested with arsonists. But this was Gravity Falls, where such terms could be much more literal.

"What are fire bugs?" he asked in a dead voice.

"Eh, they're little insects, about the size of ladybugs, but flat and brown and round. They're kinda like termites, I guess, but instead of eatin' wood, they just live inside the walls, or out in the woods they nest in rotting stumps and junk. They're normally pretty harmless, but this is mating season for them."

"Why's that a problem?" Dipper asked.

"Well, like I said, it's mating season, so there's a buttload of 'em swarming, and when they mate, they get so hot that they can char wood, maybe even set it on fire if there's enough of 'em. From what I heard, City Hall's got a bad case, worse than roaches or termites or even swarming bees."

"So they couldn't treat the insects once a month or something?"

"You never know you got 'em until tons of 'em suddenly show up. Even Gnomes won't eat these bugs, so they gotta be fumigated, the old-fashioned way. Don't you remember that time when the Shack had to be sprayed—no, wait, I guess that was a couple years before you and Mabel first came up. OK, you guys don't give up yet, and we'll figure something. I called Dan and Ford. You two just come on back to the Shack, and we'll put our heads together and dope out a plan."

"OK, I guess." Dipper turned off his phone and looked at Wendy. "He wants everybody to get together at the Shack to see if we can make a plan. You feel like driving us back?"

Wendy patted his shoulder. "Yeah, no sweat. Calm down, Dipper. It's not the end of the world, and we'll figure out something Maybe we can stay over and go dig up a judge tomorrow, if nothing else."

"That would cut our honeymoon short," Dipper said. "It's only four and a half days long as it is. I don't want that to happen."

"We've been through lots worse," Wendy said. "We don't give up. We get things done. Hey, maybe Mabel will have an idea."

"God help us!" Dipper said as Wendy started the engine.