I�m back, and I have a lot to record, so let�s back up.

Friday. I basically spent this day running around trying to pull together my outfit and help Toastgirl pull together a swanky cocktail party for 100 wedding guests for the two hours between the ceremony and reception.

I had my outfit and jewelry in place by 1pm and that�s when I had to start shopping for the ingredients for the hors d�ouveres I planned.

I was able to get a couple of hours in on the beach which was basically a shitshow with the groom kicking it up with a cooler on the beach and groomsmen trickling in from all over the country. The idiots I see every weekend were like gremlins touched with water, doubling and tripling before my eyes.

I left early to deal with the remaining tasks on my party to do list before the rehearsal dinner. Borrowed my father�s car and ran out in my bathing suit and beach cover up � figuring that I would be simply running in and out of places.

My father�s car has this bizarre malfunction. You can�t lock the car or else it triggers the alarm. Now, I don�t know about you, but locking a car is automatic for me. Yep. I think you know what happened. I�m stuck standing downtown in this resort town, in my beach cover-up and flip-flops, alarm sounding. I managed to get the alarm off, but now I needed to get picked up because the engine locked.

Everyone was at the beach.

I find this amusing. I tried to get a cop to hotwire the car for me, but apparently they can�t do that. So I had to call Toastgirl on the pay phone and break down the sitchie for her. She found this amusing, as it would really only happen to me and agreed to drive the 10 blocks to pick me up. While she was on her way, I got a hold of my parents, so they all showed up on the avenue at about the same time, to find me smoking cigarettes and talking to the girl from the nail salon next door � she�s from Bulgaria. Very nice, but a little bored in this sleepy hamlet. She invited me over to her apt. to wait I don�t think she has a lot of friends. I gave her some advice on where to go out. She offered to give me a pedicure while I waited. While I was speaking to her, one of my old connections happened up the sidewalk, so I chatted with her as well. I basically held court on a park bench.

Anyway, my dad fixed the car and I was on my way. Finished with my errands, my girls picked me up and we made it out to the tail end of the rehearsal dinner around 10PM.

We walk into the hawaiian-themed gathering at a beach bar. Everyone. Is. Bombed. The groom is actually sober for once, which is surprising because the bride has obviously thrown a few back. The best man is bombed. I mean BOMBED. He ran past me chasing one of the bridesmaids, who later tripped of her own accord while flirting and fell while he doubled over laughing.

Toastgirl and I am playing cocktail catch up, downing rumrunners with power straws which is a shot of 151 in the straw. I see the best man throwing back doubles of tequila. And then I see my brother.

He�s hugging the mother of the bride. Too long. You know when someone hugs a stranger for just a few seconds too long? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That�s what I�m seeing. Time for damage control. Partygirl vs. Jack Daniels. I�ve beaten him before.

Toastgirl got to him first. Got him over by the side of the beach bar. He is polluted. I mean, you would have thought it was his 21st birthday. He�s in his 30's. So, he�s leaning on the bulkhead looking at this old dilapidated barn next to the bar we are at, which is also waterfront property. �PG,� he slurrs,� C�mere. Lookit that. Whaddya see there?�

�Umm, I see a barn that should be torched because it�s rat infested and the wood is beyond salvaging?�

�No, lookit up there. Whaddya see up there?�

�I see a terrace that�s about to break off the structure.�

�Eggs-actly!,� he says. �It�s the perfect place for a chill bar. All a person would have to do is reinforce that deck and you�d have a chill barn-bar!�

�Do you have any idea how much that would cost?,� I ask, my mind reeling just calculating property taxes and restoration. �Not to mention buying a liquor license, insurance for a bar so close to the water and the place is surrounded by 6 foot tall weeds! The dock to the place would have to be completely rebuilt and the property taxes on a dock like that are around 10K a year!�

But nothing phases Mr. Big Idea. �$2 million,� he scoffs like he�s buying a deck chair on the Titanic. �2 million and we�d make a fortune!�

�Last time I checked, you didn�t have $2 million dollars,� I mention.

But then, recognizing the drunken American dream, I decide to get in on the action, �Yeah! And you can call it �In the Weeds,�� getting him all fired up again. Then he gets this look on his face like some demented villain. �Yeaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh, it�s a gold mine. Everyone can smoke weed at �in the weeds.� It�ll be THE place to be.�

Around this time some unsuspecting bartender called �last call� from the open bar and started a frenzy of activity among the wedding group. People ran for the bar like it was an unlocked supply closet at Betty Ford. I shouted my order in to my friend C* whom had already cozied up to the bar, ordering her to double down for me on the rumrunners. I helped her transport the duplicate drinks back to our real estate.

It was somewhere around this time that my brother, possibly reaching to grab a drink, actually fell over backwards, into a beach chair and then rolling out of the chair and onto his side in the sand. One of the groomsmen was standing next to me and without thinking we both yelled:

�THERE�S A PIPER DOWN! THERE�S A PIPER � DOWN.�

Now we are cracking up, everyone is cracking up, bride and bridesmaids are drunkenly stepping over my brother trying to find their shoes and we are just throwing every line ever uttered from �So I married an Axe Murderer� while my brother lays in a stupor in the sand.

Shortly after that we felt it was time to get to another bar. The groom wasn�t ready to go home. By the time we hit the bar down the road, the boys were pretty polluted. I tried to get everyone to leave at once, but the groom wouldn�t leave. Finally, one of the girls pulled me along and said � You know what? You need to just leave him and get yourself home.� And she was right. It was 12:30am and I had to be up by 8am to start making ice runs from the outdoor party we were having, so I left them all there.

The next morning, I started making calls to the girls and split up the chores for the party. I started tracking down the groomsmen. I made ice runs in unbelievable heat, carrying case after case into Toastgirl�s backyard and dumping them in coolers. I came home dripping wet and jumped in the shower around 11:30am, just around the time that my brother called to let me know he�d just woken up and he and the rest of the boys were heading down to the beach for an hour before the wedding.

�What?!?� I said. �There�s no time to go to the beach! What time do you need to be at the church?!?�

�1:15�

�You cannot go to the beach. You can not!�

�I�m going to the beach. We have an hour on the beach, will get back at 12:30PM shower and go to the church.�

�No, you�re not going to make it. You�re out of your mind.�

�I�m leaving�.�

Click.

I walk out the front door to finish dealing with the ice sitchie, turn to my father and say, �That was your son on the phone and he thinks he�s going to the beach. I suggest you have a word with him.�

You know what he said?

�Why can�t he go to the beach? If he leaves now, he can go for an hour, come back at 12:30PM with 45 minutes to shower and get dressed. That�s plenty of time.�

What the�.?!?!

I look at him like he has two heads. Perhaps he did not hear me, but I just told him that the idiot and the groom and the rest of the idiots are GOING TO THE BEACH an hour before they need to be dressed and at the church for this wedding.

This, friends, is the major difference between boys and girls: The girls probably started getting ready at 7am. It�s one of the most anticipated days of a girl�s life. The boys realized, on the beach an hour before the wedding, that they didn�t all have the same tux materials. Some had cumberbuns, some suspenders, some long ties and some bow ties. Oh well, they laughed, while at the same time 10 girls were probably spastically considering applying superglue to tame flyaway strands of hair and waiting a full 10 minutes in their underwear for their sheer deodorant to dry prior to putting on their dresses while the wedding coordinator ran out to the local drugstore for the umpteenth time that morning, this �emergency� being that a bridesmaid mistakenly bought new mascara in indigo rather than soft black.

I�ll leave you with that.

Tomorrow: The wedding.

previous next