skit #10: Pia Caçez

Pia Neto loves him so. But Papi Neto only now deduced the groom is a mooch. It has been so clear.

To a father, Pia is his innocent little partridge. Papi always provided so she has never farmed, never cooked, never worked, never schooled. But Papi knows to a man, she is the worst between gangly troll and an inept princess. Her skeleton is threaded with spidery sinews, too grotesque for a ball yet too delicate for a plow. When not sullen, she is spiteful. The same wilted libido as her mother (God rest her soul), Papi supposed. None could love this aberrant girl as selflessly as her father.

The groom, the Caçez boy, could not love dear Pia. He slumps and fidgets, enduring the chore of his wedding ceremony. The groom's face sags apathetically like modeling putty, except his two duplicitous escudos eying the silks and rings Papi wears. He stares through Pia at Papi. Round and around the groom's fingers trace the wedding ring's shape.

And the groom's family are rapacious money mongers. Papi Caçez has asked Papi Neto of the merchant's life for mere pleasantries. How much to export a kilogram of coffee to Moscow? How do you protect a Libson warehouse from a Coimbra mansion? What is the most silver you've smuggled? All the Caçez daughters have wed into rich families, and they wish to make a bride of the groom. The Caçez mothers survive to execute the fathers' wills.

And the help. The chef bought thirty kilograms of linguiça at the price of an entire pig farm. The wait staff poured more wine down their throats than into guests' glasses. The pastor can now bribe his way into Heaven after succumbing to such avarice. Papi Neto paid them all after the ceremony, though he certainly did not tip.

The Caçez boy plucked the ring from Papi Neto's hand and Pia Caçez from Papi Neto's family.