No greater proof of the phrase “opposites attract” exists than one New York man and his very special lady.

Ned Nefer, 38, and his wife, Teagan, are travelling on foot from their home in Syracuse to their meeting place in Watertown, a 70-mile trip that will leave only one of them exhausted. You see, Teagan has an all-too common-disease called mannequin syndrome. Sufferers of this disease can usually be found in store windows, warehouses and generally wherever things are being modeled on the human form.

You, like most people, may be wondering how exactly these two met. Well, it’s an age-old story. Boy meets mannequin head, boy falls in love with mannequin head, boy builds body for mannequin head, boy has a bit too much sugar one Halloween night – Ned actually told the Watertown Daily News he and Teagan were married Halloween night, 1986, when he was just 13 – boy proposes to mannequin and, 25 years later, man and mannequin are heading to that fateful first meeting place.

I, for one, think this marriage is the weirdest, dumbest, most American thing since I dreamed of donut burgers (two donuts with the meat of your choice stacked in the middle – come on, McDonalds!). We are a country that firmly believes in our gosh-given right to do whatever we want, whether it be drinking past our limits, idolizing the worst possible role models or marrying a mannequin that sort of looks like Big Momma.

Their matrimony probably isn’t recognized in any legal courts, and I doubt any major church would deem it holy, but it would take a cruel person to get in the way of Ned and Teagan’s love.

The happy couple is on this trip through New York and capturing all the places they spend time together along the way on one of Ned’s many disposable cameras. This trip is a testament to Ned’s love for Teagan, and it’s nothing if not romantic.

Romantic though he may be, you may still think he lives a little bit on the crazy side of life. Nonetheless, people who have met Ned say he is surprisingly normal, and even though he truly believes his wooden wife talks to him, he knows she isn’t flesh and blood and that they will definitely not be having babies.

See? He is sane.

Dominique Lyons is a sophomore news major. Contact him at [email protected].