Let me tell you how it will go:
It starts, as is tradition, with a champagne toast. This is tradition, and tradition is this. Most people do not drink all of the champagne, but I am not most people. It should be noted that this is a deceptively large amount of alcohol right off the bat. Of course, everyone has their own drinks, some left over from the hors d’oeuvres hour, some recently freshened at the bar so they can
warm upto the task of socializing with complete strangers for the next three hours. And so it is that I, with the warm fizzle of champagne in my throat, embark on this evening’s festivities.
What’re you drinking? … Is it any good? … No, I haven’t had a single moment to sit down, much less sample the bar. … Do you mind? (sips) Ooh, that’s good. What’s that called? … A what? Never heard of it. I tell you, I can’t keep up. (turns) What? Oh, OK. (turns back) I gotta go, we’re doing some other damn thing, and I’m needed on the dance floor. I’ll be back, save me a sip…It goes like this at many tables, which is really quite clever. It is clever because every table is an island, knowing only itself and table 1 and the distance between them. To each table, all other tables are just a sea of unfamiliar faces.
What’re you drinking? Is it any good? No, I haven’t had a single moment to sit down… Do you mind?And so forth.This is how it goes, until a full-body numbness mixes in with the adrenaline and the lack of sleep and the awful awful music that I specifically asked the DJ not to play and the general oh-my-God-ness of actually being in the middle of my own wedding, and at this moment I suddenly realize that I’m feeling a little bit tipsy. It is this moment that you must understand, this moment that you do not understand, because you have lived this moment in your own way but never in the way that I have lived this moment, the way that I always live this moment. This is the moment that sets us apart, you and me, husband and wife, alcoholic and not. This is the moment where you switch to soda, but I do not.
I have never, ever
switched to soda. The very phrase has always seemed ridiculous to me, and especially now. Now that you feel like this, how could you not want to feel like this longer? Now that you’ve found this, how could you choose to just let it go?Things go rapidly downhill from here. Table 9 is having Kahlua and cream, a longtime favorite, and irresistible in my current state. Table 3 is having vodka on the rocks. Table 5, the undignified but quite delicious Red Devil. And finally, following the logical conclusion (reasoned aloud) that
what the hell, I’m payin’ for everything else anyway, table 12 is just hitting their stride with a round of complimentary Long Island Iced Teas.I am really quite drunk now. We are raising a racket at table 12. People are staring. Some of the older guests are leaving. I stumble onto the dance floor, over to the DJ, and grab the microphone from his hand and raise my glass to make a toast. Various people mutter statements of disbelief under their breath, but I do not notice. You, my darling wife, are talking to one of the guests who is about to leave, so you do not see what is about to happen until it is too late. I will not remember the content of this toast tomorrow, and neither you nor anyone else will tell me what I said. It is not on the official videography. There appears to be no record of it whatsoever, except of course in the back of your mind, forever and forever, ’til death do us part.
Alternatively, we could start with a sparkling cider toast and stock a non-alcoholic bar. There isn’t… and this is the really important point… there isn’t a third option. There is no middle ground. If I could find a middle ground, I would have found it by now, and we would not be having this discussion.
