As promised, this week was a highly elaborate event of blogworthy proportions. This past weekend, my very good friend the Puncher got married in mid-state Michigan, which prompted a road trip, an excellent time, and the further destruction of my car.
Day One: Thursday, myself and Sarah drove up to the tiny little town of...someplace. Yeah, I don't even remember the town's name. It may have been Springfield Township. Population like 25. Not sure exactly. But the Lady in Black lives there now (her hometown), and she had volunteered to drive Sarah up to Midland for the bachelorette party, thus cutting roughly two hours of travel time off my trip. For I, instead, was headed back down to Ann Arbor to visit Irish McJew and see this other college town that claims some kind of rivalry with Madison.
Needless to say, McJew pulls it through when his boy comes to town. Granted, he lives right in the heart of downtown Ann Arbor, thus violating the cardinal rule of being a grad student: Never live where the undergrads live. Equally granted, this made parking a bitch, as everything was metered, and I ended up parking in a garage that I had to vacate by 6:00 am the next morning. I, of course, was horribly hung over and missed this deadline, and was trapped in said garage until a maintenance man came to collect more money from me to let me out.
But just as equally granted, living at the heart of downtown makes all the downtown stuff all the closer, particularly the bevy of bars that we went to. We met up with some friends of his and hit up 3-4 different places, including a truly spectacular place that had $.55 PBRs and Big Buck Hunter, as well as live karaoke. We easily matched his mates drink for drink; indeed, we did them one better and showed how we partied Northwestern-style. This means that, while they had about 5-6 beers, we had about 5-6 beers after we pre-partied by consuming a half a bottle of Bushmills (while killing things that were different than us), and we closed the party with very stiff Crown & Cokes. That's just how we roll.
Day Two: Friday, after hungoverly watching The Simpsons for about three hours, we went out to this extremely dive-y greasy spoon that wasn't so much in a building as it was a trailer. But the food was excellent, and the tons of potatoes included were more than adequate for staving off the death of a PBR hangover. This more than mitigated my earlier parking difficulties.
Bidding McJew adieu, I commenced my journey to Saginaw, land of the wedding and the affordable hotel (not to mention a fairly high crime rate, so I would later learn). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had been upgraded from the room I had reserved--single room with a king-sized bed--to one of the larger suites. Said suite, of course, was bigger than my old apartment, with two king sized beds, a fully-stocked living/dining room, two tvs, a pseudo-jacuzzi in the bathtub, etc. In a word, it was decadent, and I took full advantage of it by napping and tv-ing my hangover away. Red-Headed Stepchild was splitting the room with me, but as she didn't arrive until roughly 3:00 am, I got to lounge around and feel like a big man. Which I did.
Day Three: Saturday was the wedding. Slept in until 12:30, had a rushed lunch with Red and Sarah, and then got our wedding on. I of course was a bit unnerved by the Presbyterian-ness of the church and the service. Particularly the church. No icons, no stained-glass, no statutes, no false idols or graven images for me to worship at all. The writing on the walls was in English, not Latin. There were notepads in each pew for churchgoers to take notes on the sermon. For a Catholic such as myself, it was very unsettling. I managed to perform several moments of sacrelige just to calm my nerves.
The wedding of course was wonderful, and the Puncher looked absolutely gorgeous. There were brief moments of hilarity in the vows section, when the minister's love of pausing led to some egregiously-oversimplified repetition on her part (e.g. Minister: [husband's]...... ; Puncher: [husband's]....., with just enough of an ironic eyebrow lift on her part to evoke a giggle from the row of Madisonians). But by and large, the wedding itself was very tasteful, and the Madison crew of course came looking respectively dapper and smokin' hot, as is our want.
Reception followed shortly, as is the style of the times, where we drank, danced, enjoyed multiple desserts and a late-addition nacho bar. Turns out the Hillbilly and Crypto-Jew can really cut a rug together, the Puncher can walk like an Egyptian with the best of them, and drinks at reception bars are always, in fact, significantly watered down. Unless you order a white russian. Then you apparently get a glass full of rubbing alcohol. Sadly, though I drank and drank I did not get drunk. Though I guess that's just as well when you have a seven hour car ride the next morning. Side note: the groom got the best job ever, since the tables' names were all derived from "Stuff He Thinks is Cool." We personally were split between the Vampire table and the Bear Grylls table, but they also had the Chuck Norris table, the Bacon table, etc. Good times.
Day Four: We returned home, after breakfasting at a local eatery called Tim Horton's, which is apparently the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin Doughnuts. Tasty stuff, I suppose, though I'm told it's kind of a big deal if you live up north.
The entire way back to Madison, including a side detour in Lansing due to Mapquest and US Interstate idiocy (seriously, Sarah can back me on this, for some reason the exits changed numbers and skipped a few), my brakes were grinding something fierce. That combined with the general strain of the drive led to some severely short nerves and shorter temper on my part, which I adequately vented on the moronic drivers of downtown Chicago who caused me to slam on my brakes every 20 seconds. I believe she thought I was going to either have a heart attack or start murdering people. Truth be told, I wasn't all that far from either.
Anyway, long story short (too late), we got back, I took my car in, and now I'm spending a small fortune to get my brake pads and rotors replaced. Given that I just spent a fair amount on one wedding, with two more to go this summer, I can tell already that my lavish expenditures are all to be curtailed for a while. No more crack for me, I guess. But along with that, I'm placing a moratorium on weddings. No more weddings for a while. Seriously. Stop getting married, people! I forbid it!
Ok, got that out of my system. But really, don't do it. All it does is cost me money and remind me how horribly sad and lonely my life is. Oh, and I suppose the married couple gets something out of it, but really, who cares about them?
Notes from the trip:
-Ann Arbor, while cool, is not "Madison" cool. Suck it, McJew. Advantage: Badgers.
-The Lady in Black seriously lives in the middle of nowhere.
-Seeing LiB and the Puncher reminds me just how much I miss them both and how awesome they are. More trips to Madison are demanded. I'd come to you, but apparently my car will fall apart.
-Michigan has a town with the largest Christmas store in the world. I'm proposing a winter road trip right now (in someone else's car).
-No more weddings. Just live in sin like decent, god-fearing folk.
The wedding of course was wonderful, and the Puncher looked absolutely gorgeous. There were brief moments of hilarity in the vows section, when the minister's love of pausing led to some egregiously-oversimplified repetition on her part (e.g. Minister: [husband's]...... ; Puncher: [husband's]....., with just enough of an ironic eyebrow lift on her part to evoke a giggle from the row of Madisonians). But by and large, the wedding itself was very tasteful, and the Madison crew of course came looking respectively dapper and smokin' hot, as is our want.
Reception followed shortly, as is the style of the times, where we drank, danced, enjoyed multiple desserts and a late-addition nacho bar. Turns out the Hillbilly and Crypto-Jew can really cut a rug together, the Puncher can walk like an Egyptian with the best of them, and drinks at reception bars are always, in fact, significantly watered down. Unless you order a white russian. Then you apparently get a glass full of rubbing alcohol. Sadly, though I drank and drank I did not get drunk. Though I guess that's just as well when you have a seven hour car ride the next morning. Side note: the groom got the best job ever, since the tables' names were all derived from "Stuff He Thinks is Cool." We personally were split between the Vampire table and the Bear Grylls table, but they also had the Chuck Norris table, the Bacon table, etc. Good times.
Day Four: We returned home, after breakfasting at a local eatery called Tim Horton's, which is apparently the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin Doughnuts. Tasty stuff, I suppose, though I'm told it's kind of a big deal if you live up north.
The entire way back to Madison, including a side detour in Lansing due to Mapquest and US Interstate idiocy (seriously, Sarah can back me on this, for some reason the exits changed numbers and skipped a few), my brakes were grinding something fierce. That combined with the general strain of the drive led to some severely short nerves and shorter temper on my part, which I adequately vented on the moronic drivers of downtown Chicago who caused me to slam on my brakes every 20 seconds. I believe she thought I was going to either have a heart attack or start murdering people. Truth be told, I wasn't all that far from either.
Anyway, long story short (too late), we got back, I took my car in, and now I'm spending a small fortune to get my brake pads and rotors replaced. Given that I just spent a fair amount on one wedding, with two more to go this summer, I can tell already that my lavish expenditures are all to be curtailed for a while. No more crack for me, I guess. But along with that, I'm placing a moratorium on weddings. No more weddings for a while. Seriously. Stop getting married, people! I forbid it!
Ok, got that out of my system. But really, don't do it. All it does is cost me money and remind me how horribly sad and lonely my life is. Oh, and I suppose the married couple gets something out of it, but really, who cares about them?
Notes from the trip:
-Ann Arbor, while cool, is not "Madison" cool. Suck it, McJew. Advantage: Badgers.
-The Lady in Black seriously lives in the middle of nowhere.
-Seeing LiB and the Puncher reminds me just how much I miss them both and how awesome they are. More trips to Madison are demanded. I'd come to you, but apparently my car will fall apart.
-Michigan has a town with the largest Christmas store in the world. I'm proposing a winter road trip right now (in someone else's car).
-No more weddings. Just live in sin like decent, god-fearing folk.
5 comments:
It does me good to know that the boys I taught to drink in college are kicking the stat-school boys' asses. Now I am stoked for Sergio's wedding.
I've been to that Christmas store - 4 times! Every year my high school's German Club visited the town it is near for a field trip. We always stopped at the store on the way out of town. Good times.
Dude. Way to adverb "hangover." Nicely done.
Bronner's Christmas store is a serious experience. I join with k8 in having been there multiple times with my high school German Club.
The local town itself (Frankenmuth) is an absolute hotbed of German (or pseudo-German) culture and rampant Lutheranism. So our Catholic host may be less than appreciative. That said, eating at Zender's or the Bavarian Inn is worth your time if you enjoy solid, heavy, artery-clogging food washed down with a healthy dose of Germanokitch.
So what's up with coming to Saginaw for a wedding and not to Detroit for mine?
The simple fact that there was no snowstorm/icestorm ravaging the entire driving route during the month of June, like there was that weekend in February. I'm just sayin'...
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