I Wasn’t Kidding
No booze meant no booze. There was a scene, even. I can’t really say because I wasn’t involved, but if it would have gotten out that I was spiking Sarah’s punch with the contents of a Coleman flask, uh, well, did you see 300? Like that, only more violent.
Contrary to my feverish imaginings, there is indeed wonderful wireless internetworkwiregemeinschaftehosen out here in North Dakota. We are, indeed, out West in the Wild Frontier, for there are cowboy hats aplenty. I kind of want to go to one of the western apparel stores to get a hat and boots. I have a pirate costume, why not a cowboy?
Why not a cowboy?
Anywhats, I’m sober as a bird out here. I shot five or six hundred pictures of strangers who had no idea who I was or why I was shooting pictures. The wedding was brief, which was good, because the tiny church was airless and stiflingly sunny. I nearly fell asleep during the pastor’s literal cell phone call with God. I swear to you, his fucking cell phone rang and he busted into a one sided conversation that ended with some sort of joke about being mutually subserviant or something. Snooze o rama tastic. I nearly took a straight pull of Captain Morgan’s out of the flask right then and there.
“We are fucking walking back to the fucking hotel, and we are leaving now,” I would have said, leaping to my feet and draining the flask. This did not happen. Instead I made very rude comments about bacon window coverings to Sarah, her sister Lisa, and their friend Bry [prounced like Brie]. My ability to say wildly inappropriate comments at any time has proven more powerful than I could have possibly imagined.
Last night there was a party bus for the bachelor party. I think that half of the guys were high school wrestling friends of the grooms, so they (wink wink) did not get into any of the bars. I put a six pack of North Dakota sourced Summit Extra Pale Ale into my coat and drank most of them before we got to the first bar. After that it was a blur of buckets of Bud. I had a couple, I think, but I am repressing those memories. My excuse is that I had just been smoking an enormous cigar from the tobacco shop (”I am looking for a cigar in the five to seven megawatt range”) and I needed to clear that burnt poop flavor out of my mouth.
No one was injured on or near the Party Bus. The groom may or may not have thrown up so frequently and plentifully that he disappeared into the garbage can in the back row. His father may or may not have urinated on the outside wall of the hotel with three of the groomsmen. I may or may not have half carried the groom back to our room and chucked him on to the bed with a trash can next to his head.
“Why don’t I have a Sharpie? He needs more facial hair!” I muttered. If the best man would have had any sense he would have driven to the corner store (or Hell, the Walmart since we’re in Rome and should do as the Romans do) and picked one up just so he could write “BALLS” on the groom’s forehead. I guess that maybe you get a free pass when you’re getting shackled to a spouse the next day.
The best man was supposed to stay in the bed with the groom, but he declined, saying that he’d rather go sleep on the floor than in a vomit bed. I had already claimed the other bed, and as he left with his girlfriend, I wondered why the floor of our room wasn’t good enough for him. Oh, his girlfriend. Indeed. Indeed.
I was left to wake up occasionally and have that new parent night terror.
“Oh no! I can’t hear him sleeping! He’s gone and choked to death on his own vomit! This is the best wedding ever!”
Except that the groom would start snoring and I would go back to sleep — until 7:30 rolled around and the best man popped into the room.
“HEY ARE YOU GUYS AWAKE? ARE YOU OKAY? WELL, YOU’VE GOT MY PHONE NUMBER IF YOU NEED ANYTHING, I’M GONNA GO DO SOMETHING AWAKE WITH THE WAKING UP OF AWAKENESS!” he shouted, shaking the walls and beds.
Just as I started to drift back into a fitful slumber where dreams of bi-curious cowboys hitting on high school wrestlers but kind of trying to start a fight, but maybe they’d all just end up in one big pile of sweaty boys and empty cans of Busch Light — the bridezilla called and screamed into the phone for ten or twenty minutes. As much as I was happy to wake up from the nightmare recreation of the cowboy bar from the night before, I was stuck in that position of catching someone having sex for the first time and not knowing whether to let them know that you are there by exiting loudly or just gritting your teeth silently and letting them fuck it out in the hopes that maybe your friend is a minute man and holy crap it’s been like an hour and now if I leave they’ll know that I’ve been here just listening to them grow stress fractures on their futon frame wait did they just say “get the Penetrator?” oh crap I gotta get the hell out of here before the lights dim from them plugging that into the wall and who are they going to use it on anyway?
It really sounded like the phone was on speaker, but everyone assures me that the bride is just that loud. I heard lots of bitching about the groom having gotten drunk before I couldn’t take it any more. I jumped up, rolled into the shower, and headed out into the hallway, naked and dripping.
“Sarah? What room are you in? Oh, sorry, kids, uh, just, uh, on my way to the sauna.” I never did find the sauna, but I found Sarah’s room and we had muffins with everyone else who was awake.
I wasn’t involved in the trip to Walmart to purchase pranking supplies, the pranking of the bridal car, or the pranking of their hotel room. At least they will have condoms, lube, and cucumbers. For each of them. Also, all the balloons and off brand oreos they want, as long as they unstick them from the car windows. I had nothing to do with any of that.
Okay, I think that it’s time to go through some of the five hundred or so pictures. Internet atcha laterZ.
dude…
Your life allows me go vicariously imagine what life as a total asshole would be like for me and those around me.
…not always, but often.
Did I mention not always?
Did I mention that I love you anyway, and I hold out hope you’ll read this stuff too and get it.
Did I mention not always?
xx00
shooby
OMFG. The wedding weekend has better stories than I ever imagined. Although I need to hear about Sarah’s drunken rampage. Oh, how you taunt with your vagueness.
Now you know what it is like to be your mom. Although you are usually damn entertaining when drunk, which makes up for it in spades. Achkem, achkem, achkem!!!
Your shopping list: boots, spurs, cowboy hat, wrangler jeans (tight), cowboy shirt with snaps, belt buckle as big as a dinner plate, chewing tobacco.
Awesome.
Unfortunately, I went on no drunken rampages. My … um, well, sister-in-law Sara (so weird to type that!!) went on a rampage against my heavily intoxicated sister Lisa.
And to add another layer to the wedding stories: apparently, during the gift opening and after all the cards were open, the first thing Sara uttered was, “So, how much money did we get?”
Yes…because you’ll need all you can because you still have a photographer to pay off, which you failed to do the day of the wedding. Ouch.
This is better than television. You must tell me all. Both of you. I’ll make a meal of it, I tell you!
Also, only bridezillas and other B-movie monsters spell “Sarah” without the “h.” How gauche.
No comment.
Indeed. I think we all should understsand your reference. You were a brave soul to come with me, and I can’t thank you enough for putting up with my family!
Shooby: are you saying that I’m an asshole?
Is that a real whale? Why is it dead? Where are they taking it? Who is “they”?
I have two words for you, mother: whale bacon.
Whale bacon? Uh-oh, I think I’ll ask John to ’splain things to me.
Delicious!