Page 3

Before heading on to the third and final winery of the day, I made one more stop/break-in at the stretch-hummer and bagged Car B a bunch of cans of assorted Pepsi products... Unfortunately the limo was out of alcohol now too. Yeah, sometimes life sucks. What can I say. Anyway, the last winery was just a bit down the road from the Hitler-camp we stopped at second, and all in all it was pretty good. The tasting room was set up like a big wide-open bar, with large windows letting in tons of blinding light from West to East. But we didn't let that hamper our buzzes in the least. In fact, the bright sunlight helped us to get creative in sucking down more wine than we paid for.

We'd start on the West side of the wrap-around bar, when the winery workers were first pouring out the samples. Then we'd suck those down, get fresh glasses, and then hustle over to the East side (facing the setting sun, with our sunglasses on as light protection, and awesome spy-disguises) and get filled up again. By the last sample of the day we were getting really creative by switching people's hats and shirts around between us, so that each of us could get 7-8 samples of every tasty beverage. We only got caught and thrown out when, for some reason, the employees found me stripped down to my boxers, under the bar, with three drained bottles of red, "shhh"-ing anybody who peeked down on me, supposedly telling them that "it's alright... It's just a little spicket of the wine more before the tide comes in and the moon." I think they make decoder rings for things like this.

So we all left/were thrown out by a large man named Pepe, and then headed back to the Manor House so that the limo driver could drop off his human cargo and then go home and get wasted himself. Then we all regrouped and the official wedding party went off to drunkenly run through the rehearsal, and then feast at the rehearsal dinner. The rest of us found a few sober people (most were just kidnapped from the front porch of the Manor), and had them drive us to the little downtown area for some food and hopefully some more boozin'.

It was still relatively early in the evening, and so we were able to find a nice bar and grill with an empty table large enough to sit all 14 of us, right across from the town square. After just a few meals in California though (and after having to pay for my own wine tasting ticket, and buy a new shirt and tie) and I was already starting to feel my wallet twitch in pain, so I laid off the alcohol and just got a burger and fries that night. Everybody else though was going ape shit on the menu. Dutchboy and some of his buddies were getting something like 3-4 orders of each appetizer, and drink after drink after drink. It got LIVELY there to say the least. We all made fun of the bride and groom, hurricane victims, and the illegal aliens serving our meals and soon 2 hours passed without us realizing it. More than half of the table was ready to call it a night, so we started to settle up the bill. All $518 of it. Since the accountants at the table were all blitzed, some guy I didn't know grabbed the loooooong receipt and did the quick math without even asking what people got. After a few seconds of him chewing on his lip and clicking his teeth together he announced, "Okay, everybody. Each of you owes $37. Don't worry though, the tip's included."

Needless to say, the poor fucks at the table (me, of course, included) had to argue against the man's really shitty algorithms. I believe I said something along the lines of, "My dear sir... Despite the fact that you are so sure of your addition and subtraction mad skillz, I do believe you are mistaken. For you see, I, unlike you rich fucks who all make over $100K a year, am near dirt-ass broke, and therefore only ordered one $11 hamburger with a water. One does not even need to use a scientifically endorsed calculator to figure out that $11 is much less than your final product of $37. That would be like me saying 'I know that I ordered the prostitute and you only got to watch me fuck her reverse-cowgirl style for three hours, but you owe me $313 for the honor of witnessing my engorged penis entering her pleasant vagina.' Do you understand, douchebag?"

I thought I kept a very cordial and pleasant tone, but a friend of the bride who sat two seats down from me was a little less eloquent."What the GODDAMN FUCK do you mean that I owe you 37 fucking bucks?! I got a $7 salad! A SALAD! SEVEN DOLLARS! Do you not understand basic arithmetic?! You goddamn pansy communist!" She pretty much drowned out my well worded argument, though she did get a response from bill-man. He gave her the "shhhhhhhhh" gesture, and motioned for her to get off the table and sit down again. Then he explained, "Yes, well be that as it may, if you eat out with a bunch of people like this, you have to pay for the honor of doing so. So, like I said, everybody owes $37. Pass it this way, people." I put a ten spot and two ones in the MegaPlayboy's hand and then went outside mumbling to him that these were not the droids he was looking for. Bill-man yelled at me as I got up from the table though (seriously, the fucker YELLED), "HEY! Did you fucking put into the pot?" I flicked him off, but made it look like a wave, and said something like, "Yeah, you fuck your mother I did." Then I walked to the town square and called Smelly Melly.

My friend, Smelly Melly, had recently moved back to the West Coast just a few weeks before, and told me to look her up if I was ever in town. Well, she lives in LA, but I figured that that was close enough for her to just swing on by on Sunday, after the festivities. So I called her up and started bugging the ever living shit out of her until she caved and decided to cruise on up to San Francisco the day after the wedding (when I'd be back in the City on the Gay), so we could sightsee and shit together. I told her I'd buy her and her boy-toy dinner if they came. I promised I'd streak around Alcatraz if they met me. I even swore that I would stop humping ladies' legs in public if they hung out with me for a day or two... She wouldn't budge. I then tried to get some of the other (much drunker) wedding guests, who were just emerging from the restaurant, to convince her to meet me. Romy just started asking about her shoes that she was wearing, the MegaPlayboy just asked about her panties, and then Dutchboy talked to her for about 20 minutes (on my roaming goddamn phone!) and proceeded to hit on her, trying to get her to meet him on Sunday for a little booty call. I think that Smelly pulled the "my boyfriend could eat and shit you out without fucking up his colon" line that she's famous for, because Dutchboy then handed the phone back to me while audibly calling my friend a "cock-teasing whore". Classy. Anyway, Smelly refused to spend the $200 in gas and 8 hour round-trip that it would take to meet me, so we said goodbye and I hung up. Truth be told, that was probably for the best since I didn't mean any of the promises about not dry humping hot chicks' legs. Honestly, I think Smelly saw right through that too. Anyway, as things turned out, I had a 1000Xs better Sunday on my own (well, I made about 700 new friends by the end of the day; I just meant "alone" without Smelly [sorry Smelly!] and her man-o-the-moment), but that's a story for another page.

Where the fuck was I?... Okay, so all the rich guys and gals (who couldn't figure out basic math) finally started coming out of the restaurant, and Bill-man was still bitching, "SOMEbody didn't pay their share... In fact I think a few people didn't. I had to cover the rest. Goddammit that isn't fair!" Yeah, I hear you... Having to pay a sum closer to the actual $63 you yourself spent on food and drink ain't fair at all. Lick my fuckin' nuts, man.

So, we survived dinner, but some people's sobriety was starting to catch up to them. A few wimps bailed at that time, but the rest of us found a tiny little bar on the North side of town with a couple of pool tables and a shuffleboard inside. It was fucking heaven! It was fucking Zeke's Bar and Goodtime Lounge. We continued/started up again with the drinking, and I fucking ruled that shuffleboard that night like Chairman Mao on a peasant. Well, Romy and I ruled it... In all honesty, I was Romy's bitch that night. We'd have Firecracker or the MegaPlayboy distract the other team and then Romy would shuffle the puck in my place. Then when the other team would turn back they'd just see another shot of ours in the "4 zone". Eh, so what if they know we cheated that night. Too late to get their money and pants back now. Fuck 'em.

At one point I went to the bathroom in the back, and when I came back almost everybody I knew was gone (except for Dutchboy, who was passed out on top of one of the pool tables). I paid off my tab (which mysteriously had about 43 more drinks on it than I remember ordering) and then started hunting through the cozy little downtown mall just like a sniper. Louis Gossett Jr. taught me well. I didn't find anybody who was at the bar with me, but as luck would have it, I did run in to the Colonel and the whole wedding party at another downtown restaurant having a late late rehearsal dinner. I noticed that the Colonel's cousin, who I met before, wasn't with them, and I brought this up, knowing that he had a car and might be able to take me back to mine. At the mention of his name, however, the Colonel started acting strange, nervously dabbing his wet brow, and rolling up his sleeves to hide what looked like cherry Kool-Aid stains. He told me that I was talking too much and it was all incomprehensible gibberish what I was muttering. Then he socked me in the gut and had his brother take me back to my car at the Manor House, saying something like I was having a bad reaction to the hydrominocidocillin that he gave me earlier. Next thing I knew I woke up the next morning thanks to the MegaPlayboy honking his horn right outside my hotel window.