BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Part 6 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: Goin’ To The Chapel…

So, in the previous installment we established that Tom Hanks wasn’t available for my bachelor party. Neither were Tawny Kitaen nor Adrian Zmed. I’ve never forgiven any of them for that, and it is largely why you will never see us together in public, or private, for that matter. Well, that and the fact that we don’t know one another, but that’s just one of those small details… On with being “mobile”…

As all men are born knowing, there is a certain code that must be followed with regard to bachelor parties… really… it’s built right into our genetic makeup. But, anyway, all men know if you are tapped to be your buddy’s best man when he takes the plunge you have been telling him not to take ever since you were old enough to understand the ramifications… (Whew… that was a mouthful… Deep breath…) You know, inherently and without any outside influence, it is a moral imperative that you take your buddy out and get him completely and totally f*cked up. Preferably, the night immediately before the wedding.

Now, women have caught on to this in recent years. No doubt because they are generally a whole lot smarter than men give them credit for… (yeah, I know, ending in a preposition… it’s a blog… cut me some slack)… To be honest, women are generally a damn sight more intelligent than men, period. But let us not digress into a discussion about my submissive side and E K’s collection of handcuffs, leather items, and stiletto he… Err… umm…

Just ignore that last part, okay?

So, anyway, since you ladies know what’s up with that crap, you have had a tendency to put the brakes on the time honored tradition, insisting instead that the bachelor party be held a week or so prior to the event so as to allow for recovery time.

Well, Kathy didn’t do that. It’s not that she was oblivious to anything. I mean, after all, she’s friggin’ brilliant and it’s virtually impossible to get anything over on her. It requires an entire government conspiracy, unmarked helicopters, tranquilizer darts, and James Bond to pull even a shred of wool over her eyes. (Although, if the 007 in question happened to be the Pierce Brosnan incarnation, E K would probably be going by some “Bond Girl” name like Kitten McSharpclaws, and I would most likely be finding myself suddenly single and crying in my beer… Yeah, E K is all about that guy. I have no idea what she sees in him… I mean, it’s not like he’s insanely handsome, intelligent, philanthropic, faithful to a fault…Oh wait… he is… never mind.)

So, anyway, E K didn’t put her foot down on anyone’s neck. Not right then anyway. She’s definitely stepped on her share since, but not without just cause, believe me. Even though she has nicknames that seem as though they belong to some kind of psycho woman, they are really and truly all in fun. She is one of the most even tempered people I know, and I’m not just saying that to score points with her. Trust me, scoring points with E K requires a hell of a lot more than a handful of pretty words…

And, speaking of points, (like how I did that?) the point here being, she allowed Scott to plan the bachelor party for the night immediately before the wedding. October 31 was falling on a Saturday that year, so Friday night was on for the festivities. Kat was going out with her Matron of Honor, (remember Erin?), and some other ladies for a nice dinner, and whatever women do at Bachelorette parties… yeah, I know, I’ve seen some home videos… But, as it turned out E K and her friends didn’t go that route. She was exhausted and after dinner and a couple of drinks she came home and went to bed. Or so she maintains…

Me however… well, that was a different story. Scott arrived in a rented 12 passenger van. He had already picked up a few of the guys, and we made the rounds to pick up the rest. In the back of this van was a cooler… In the cooler was beer… something on the order of 48,000 beers… No kidding. The damn thing never became empty and, at Scott’s direction, neither did my hand. What I mean is the moment I would finish a beer, someone would reload my hand. If I wasn’t drinking fast enough, they found a way to get me to slam whatever brew I was holding so they could… Yeah, you guessed it.  Reload.

Once everyone was on board, we made the rounds of several bars in the Saint Louis area. As would be expected, these bars all featured scantily clad, young, busty, leggy, flirtatious waitresses. And, at each stop the mantra became, B-52!

Nope, not the Love Shack,  Rock Lobster, Channel Z folks… I’m talking about the drink. A triple layered shot of Bailey’s, Grand Marnier and Kahlua… sometimes set on fire. AKA a Flaming B-52…

So, at each and every bar we would begin the stay with a round of B-52’s… Although, to be honest, I think it was less of a round and more of a pair… I was always presented with one, and whoever else in the group got tapped to drink with me that “round” to make me think everyone was getting trashed, and not just me.

Now, so you understand, Scott is a responsible guy. After all, a year later he officially became a cop and is probably one of the best cops around… So, he wasn’t drinking booze. He was staying sober so that he could drive, and watch out for everyone else, in particular me, as you will see later…

And so, the B-52 chant continued… with help from the outside. You see, these characters were not at all shy about telling everyone in the bar that I was a “dead man walking,” so to speak. Therefore, I became the object of much fawning by waitresses. (Believe me, I know they were well tipped. I saw the dollar bills flying.) And, there were extra drinks, courtesy of other patrons in the establishment: usually a B-52… Or 3… Or 4… Yeah. Go figure. Although, I must admit, I do vaguely remember something about Kamikaze’s and Purple Hooters. Thinking back, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up in a hospital detox ward…

By this time it was relatively late, and I had not yet had anything to eat for dinner. But, they had a plan there too… On the way to our next stop on the “get drunk in St. Lou” tour, we swung into the drive-thru of White Castle. Now, I know they don’t have White Castle everywhere, but they have equivalents I believe… For instance, in the south the closest you would find would be Krystal’s… However, if you have no equivalent, and no idea what I am talking about, White Castle, (and the equivalents,) serve these little, square, steam grilled with onions burgers. They have a unique taste, and are a staple for drunken binges. Since they are small, a grown man will generally eat around 4 to 6 of them. Sometimes more, if he’s really hungry. If he’s drunk, usually quite a few more. You have probably heard these burgers referred to as Sliders, or the ever popular Saint Louis moniker, Belly Bombers.

Well, they get the nicknames honestly… You see, they have a lingering effect on one’s digestive system. Especially if one has been drinking heavily. The thing is however, said effect usually doesn’t roll around for about 6 to 12 hours after consumption… See where I’m headed with this?

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many of those things I ate that night…

So, anyway… Eventually, as all Saint Louis based bachelor parties tend to do, we ended up across the river in Illinois, smack in the middle of what is called the “East Side”. This is where you find the bars where the waitresses are not scantily clad. Well, actually, the waitresses are scantily clad… but, the other women who work there are mostly naked and swinging around shiny poles… Or wiggling around on your lap… Or sticking your face in their cleavage… Or… Well, you get the picture.

Guess what? We didn’t go into one of those bars. No kidding. I remember it had to do with one of the guys in the group not wanting to go in, and I was so drunk at that point that I backed him up, slurring my way through, “If he ain’t goin’, I ain’t goin’…” He didn’t make any friends of the other guys that night, trust me… Fortunately, they didn’t hold it against me that I backed him up, because they knew I was so trashed that I had no clue what I was saying. Besides, they also knew that it was all their fault that I was out of my head drunk in the first place… Well, not all their fault I don’t guess, but that they had been the primary contributors, that’s for sure…

Instead, we grabbed a table at one of the big dance club type bars and sat  there drinking beer. At least, that’s what I think I was doing. Everything was kind of moving in slow motion, including the music and sound around me. It was much like that part in the original Terminator movie when Arnie comes into the techno dance club on a mission to off Sarah Connor…

I do remember that at one point I hauled myself off to the restroom to unload some of the drink my kidneys had finally managed to process, and while becoming acquainted with the urinal someone stuck something in my back and demanded my wallet. Being trashed I just replied, “Yeah right. Very funny.” (Although, I suspect it probably came out more like, “Nyabnigh, furrvffblee nubby.”) Still, in response to my slurred words, whatever it was in my back went away, and that was the end of it.  However, I later found out that some fool had watched me bob and weave to the restroom and decided I’d make a good target, and that unbeknownst to me I was actually being mugged. However, unbeknownst to my mugger, Scott,  (remember him, the 6 foot 6 cop?) had followed him. So, when the whatever in my back disappeared and life went on without incident for me, what had actually happened was that Scott yanked the idiot up and bounced him off a wall.  All without a word. Kind of like Chuin rescuing Remo at the statue of liberty… Yeah, more obscure movie references… I just can’t help myself…

But, see, I told you he was looking out for me…

By now, it was oh-dark-thirty… really… I have no friggin’ clue what time it  actually was. All I know is we left the bar, dropped off some of the guys, then went back to Scott’s place with the crew that was left, and had Pizza. Yeah… Pizza. Don’t ask me. It was there and I ate it. Oh, and there was more beer involved. Yeah… a lot more beer.

At some point in the wee hours of Saturday morning… well, I think they were actually beyond “wee,” because we weren’t all that far from sunrise… Scott drove me home.

Now, here is something I didn’t mention earlier: All I had in my pocket was my ID. No wallet, no keys, no cash, no nothing. Scott knew this.

He helped me out of the van, dragged me up to the front door of the house, propped me against the porch railing, then rang the doorbell and ran just like a kid who had just set fire to a sack of dog-poo.

However, he didn’t go far… He stood in the front yard to watch the show.

A few moments later a very sleepy E K pulled open the door and just stared at me with one eye. Without a word, she turned and headed back to the bedroom while I literally crawled into the house…

No matter how many years have passed… And I do mean to this very day… I can still hear Scott laughing his ass off out in the front yard…

At a later date, E K made it perfectly clear to Scott how she felt about my condition upon being returned, and moreover, the method by which I was deposited upon the doorstep. She takes a very dim view of her possessions being mistreated whenever someone borrows them. I think it hearkens back to her high school years… Something about her Drill Team Uniform never being returned by the girl who borrowed it… (And believe me, I’m not real excited with that girl either… I mean just imagine, E K in a drill team  / cheerleader uniform… But, I digress…)

It was after the evil one had delivered her cold and calculated admonition that Scott fessed up, and told her the original plan had been to wait until I passed out,  strip me down to my skivvies, tape a quarter to my forehead, write his number on the back of my hand, and put me on a Greyhound Bus bound for Chicago… Of course, part of his plan also involved driving to Chicago so he could be there to watch me get off the bus and wander about aimlessly, before he finally loaded me up and hightailed it back to Saint Louis, arriving just in time to deliver me to the wedding…

Good thing I never actually passed out, until arriving home that is, because there were some unforeseen events in our very near future, one of which was only a few points shy of being catastrophic in relation to the upcoming festivities.

Besides, 6 foot 6 or no, E K would have killed him and fed his carcass to her cats. Guaranteed…

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: The Wedding Suit…

Part 5 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: So I Have This Idea…

…And I’m, gonna get maie air air reed…

Okay, old song reference, I know. I’ll stop singing now.

Unfortunately, Tom Hanks wasn’t available for my bachelor party… He was busy building his career as I was preparing to embark upon this odyssey.  But, that really didn’t matter. Given that at that point in history we weren’t on speaking terms – and we aren’t right now either, for that matter ,(probably because we’ve never met), I figured I’d just find someone else to arrange the entertainment.

But, let me back up a second…

In the last blog, E K finally said yes to the big question. While you would think that I would have jumped up and run around the room screaming, “She said YES! She said YES! WooHoo, she said YES!” – a very logical assumption given the circumstances, mind you – the reality is, I didn’t. Truth be told, it took something on the order of 30 seconds, maybe even a full minute for it to sink in that she had given me an answer that was vastly different, and diametrically opposed to the one she had been giving me to date.

Now I had a problem. No ring. Yeah, back when I had originally broached the subject I didn’t have one either… I had just been winging it. Given the answers I had been getting, I hadn’t been in a hurry to go purchase one either… Fortunately, my frugal live-in girlfriend turned fiancee didn’t mind. I think that just for grins we ended up using a cable tie, or piece of string, or something innocuous that was laying around the shop at the time. I doubt she even has it anymore because she’s nowhere near as sentimental as me, but watch her read this blog and prove me wrong. If she does, I’ll be sure to let everyone know…

(Just as an aside, for the record, a few years later when things were no longer so tight, I saw to it that she received a full blown engagement/wedding set with as much gold and as many sparkly rocks as I could manage in a tasteful ring…)

At any rate, now a snowball began rolling downhill, and it just kept growing…

For one thing, we made arrangements to take E K’s parents to dinner, whereupon I asked her father if it would be okay for me to marry his daughter. Yeah, I know, old fashioned, but even though it seemed to surprise him I think he appreciated the gesture.

Then, we were in the middle of buying the house, which as noted in the first of this blog series, was a fixer-upper from hell. I suppose we were just in such a hurry to get out of the duplex – not because it was a bad place, mind you. Not at all. In fact, it was actually very nice, and the landlord was a great guy too. You see, it’s just that the lease had a “verbal-handshake” rider saying no pets.

I can see the question marks now… Yeah, Kathy’s cats… explain that one, Murv…

Well, you see, we had signed the lease on the duplex and were in the middle of shaking hands when the landlord said, “Oh, I forgot to ask, you don’t have any pets do you? Because, they aren’t allowed…”

At this point, E K and I simply looked at one another then turned to him and lied through our teeth. We had been looking for an apartment for what seemed like forever, and this was the first one in our price range that hadn’t rejected our application due to my rocky credit history and hers as well – you see, she wasn’t delinquent on anything, but having been married and at that point not officially divorced just yet, her name was tied to her ex-husband’s debts, which made it look like she owed way too much to way too many folks to be able to afford an apartment.

So, re-acquiring the earlier thread – we bought ourselves a fixer upper. Being twenty-somethings, giddy in love, and in a hurry to get out of an apartment before we had to sign another year long lease, we probably didn’t inspect things quite as closely as we should – and, by the same token, probably paid far more for the house than it was worth, which is most likely why they accepted our offer immediately with no qualms whatsoever… But, oh well, live and learn…

Here’s the thing – we had set the date for our wedding to be October 31. Halloween. Samhain. Not the traditional sort of date, but hey, given that on that night the veil between the worlds is said to be at its thinnest, relatives and friends who had already gone over to the other side (i.e. croaked) would find it much easier to attend… Hey, works for me.

At this point, all manner of things were in motion – for one, we were beginning to wonder if we were going to have to postpone the wedding for legal reasons. It seems the attorney handling E K’s divorce had been ditzing about, and while it was one of those uncontested, sign on the dotted line, thank you very much, goodbye sort of divorces, the legal eagle had been postponing and postponing getting the paperwork filed. She seemed to have a bit of a procrastination issue. Rule number 1, never use an attorney who advertises in the TV guide. Yeah, I’m not kidding… But, in this case it wasn’t EK’s “frugalness” to blame, it was the ex-husband’s militant stinginess. There’s a huge difference… But, I digress… The thing here being, in the state of Missouri you have to be  legally divorced for X number of days, (I can’t remember the actual number), before you can remarry. Or at least at that time, (back in the dark ages), that’s the way it was. I’m not sure what the statutes are these days.

Fortunately, the procrastinating mouthpiece finally got off the pot , or sh*t, or whatever she needed to do that she had actually already been paid to do.   The old marriage was dissolved and we ended up meeting the deadline with something on the order of 3 days to spare. So, that was all good.

Now came the new money issues… Obviously, since Kathy had been married before her parents weren’t going to pop for a wedding, even if they could have afforded it, so it was all on us. And, we had just bought a house, so we weren’t exactly flush with excess cash. We looked at halls, and even hotel suites, to rent for a reception but just couldn’t hammer them into our budget, no matter how hard we tried or which corners we cut. So, we finally made a decision… We would pour our limited funds into fixing up the house as best we could in the interim, buy some food, and have the wedding right there in the living room…

Yeah. Stupid eh? Well, we were young. Give us a break.

The problem we faced now is that by the time we reached this decision and had officially closed on the house, we only had about 30 days to make this happen. Somehow we did… (Remind me to tell you sometime about running a floor sander for hours on end…)

Of course, in the pictures you will see over the next few installments, it is obvious that things are woefully unfinished – no baseboards, partially sanded woodwork, and don’t even get me started on the kitchen, which remained untouched as far as remodeling for a few years. We were concentrating on the living room and dining room, since that was where things were to take place. The rest was, unfortunately, temporary storage for the time being…

So, where did this leave us? Obviously planning a wedding and reception, but it also left us being our own caterers as well. And, being the eclectic, bizarre folks we are, we didn’t want all the traditional wedding food one has , in Saint Louis, at least.  That being tasteless roast beef, baked mostaccioli, and green beans almandine. No, we just had to be different. Therefore, our menu ended up consisting of a spiral cut Honey Baked Ham® from none other than the Honey Baked Ham® company themselves. In addition, we also served veal parmigiana, and apple-rice curry. Erin, remember Erin from ComputerTrend, the busty blonde? Well, Erin’s husband was actually a restaurant manager at a local country club so he loaned us some extra chafing dishes they had laying about, which was a huge help. With that, we were almost finished with the menu save for several large boxes of assorted heat and serve hors d’oeuvres, also purchased from HBH… When we placed that order the guy at the counter called into the back, “I need x y number of boxes of Whores Duh-Vores…” E K had plenty of fun with that…

We ordered up a keg of beer,  and I even picked up everything I needed to make sauce for the veal patties. We should have been set, but we weren’t…

My dad dropped by for a visit and asked how things were going. Beaming, we told him all was good, and outlined the menu choices. He nodded, grunted, then asked, “So what kind of cake are you getting?”

Kathy and I looked at one another. Then we looked at him. Then we looked at one another again.

I said, “Uhm…uhh…”

Kathy said, “I guess we aren’t. We can’t afford one.”

My father raised an eyebrow, then snorted and said, “Bullshit. You can’t get married without a cake.”

With that, he reached into his wallet and withdrew a 100 dollar bill and handed it to Kat while adding, “Let me know if it costs more.”

And so, we went “cake shopping”… This was new to me. Even with all my experience with restaurants and diners, (on my mother’s side of the family) , I had never been all about the baking end of things… So, I did what any self-respecting man should do… I gave in to whatever E K wanted, listened closely so that if she needed help making a decision I chose whatever it sounded like she was leaning toward, and voila… We had a cake…

At this point all of the guys reading this are probably doing a rundown – “Lemme see… ya’ got ham, ya’ got beer, ya’ got cake… Yep, we’re good.”

If I had to guess, however, I’d say you women readers are most likely all pretty antsy at this point. I suspect – though I may be wrong – that you’re probably dancing around in your seats, shaking your fingers at the screen, and muttering, “But… but… but… what about… but…“

Do you mean, “What about The Dress?”

Yeah, I figured as much.

So, yeah… We also had to go wedding dress shopping. Yet another new experience for me, especially since I was wholly unaware that the groom was in any way involved in the selection of the dress.

Okay… We’ve established that this wasn’t Kat’s first rodeo. In addition to that, our house isn’t all that big, (i.e. no room for a 90 foot long train), and we were out of money. Also, while she can be as girly girl as the next woman, she isn’t all about too much foo-feraw…

And so, we went wedding dress shopping at… wait for it… Kmart®. Yeah, “Definitely Kmart, definitely definitely definitely Kmart…” I think I might have even picked up a 3 pack of tighty-whities while we were there.

Now, before you ladies get together a mob to come after me, it wasn’t my idea. It was Kathy’s. But, let me tell you something, she picked out an incredible dress and couldn’t have looked any better in my opinion, and it came in at around 40 bucks. She already had a brand new pair of white heels, so no new shoes were needed in her estimation. See what I mean about her being frugal? Yeah… it amazes me too…

So… Now were were set. She had a dress, we had a menu, the polyurethane was dry on the newly refinished hardwood floors, and we even had rings… we’ll get to those in a bit. My best buddy, Scott Ruddle, (after whom Detective Benjamin Storm in the RGI novels is modeled), was tapped to be my best man, and Erin (remember Erin?) was to be Kathy’s Matron of Honor. We had a license, and we even had a preacher – Kathy’s father, who is a Baptist Minister…

The day was fast approaching, and little did we know all hell was about to break loose…

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: Mobile Bachelor Party…