One to Go

Scott & Christine
My friend Scott is getting married this Saturday. That’s a significant occasion in my life, because it just may be the last time I’ll have to participate in a wedding for a VERY long time. Scott is one of my oldest friends, but he decided to wait until he was almost old enough to collect social security before settling down. He found himself a good woman, who knows how to push his buttons.

I’ve known Scott since I was eleven. We were on the same swim team when we were kids and ended up going to high school together after I transferred to Independence way back when. I can name every car the guy has ever owned:

- Ford Cortina (red)
- Fiat X-19 (avocado green)
- Honda CRX (red)
- Acura Integra (white)
- Nissan Pathfinder (grey)
- Nissan Murano (which he doesn’t actually own…it’s his future wife’s…I haven’t told him about the “you don’t own squat anymore” part about being married).

With every car, there’s a story or two. His Cortina was stolen by one of his pot-head buddies that we went to school with, who ended up rolling the thing on the front lawn outside Aloha Roller Palace. He thought his X-19 was a chick magnet, whereas most women thought it was a chick’s car. His CRX had a license plate that read “IMONFYR”, in honor of Bruce Springsteen. The girls all thought it meant he had the clap.

His Integra doubled as a toilet on my 21st birthday, when HE puked in the back seat (his birthday is the day before mine, so his 21st birthday got to extend a day to help me celebrate). He tried to throw me and Sonya out of his Pathfinder on Hwy 80 after a ski trip, because he went nuts in bumper to bumper traffic. We told him no, so HE jumped out of the car!

I have yet to really experience anything with the Murano, because, well, it really doesn’t belong to him (did I mention that already?). I’m sure those stories are just around the corner.

While I’m sitting here thinking of some thread that binds my experiences with him, I seem to come up with something related to his cars or cars in general. We both like cars enough that we’ve traveled to Indianapolis together to see a car race. I’ve driven with him on so many ski trips there's no way to say how many mountain miles we've put in together (including a trip to Mammoth Mountain in June to go snow skiing). In high school, we “cruised” the El Camino in his CRX. My God, can you image two teenage guys cruising in a CRX. I never did understand why we never really met any girls that way.

I’ve driven more miles with the guy than you can imagine. Now he’s making me drive to Timbuktu to attend his wedding. So the binding glue in our relationship is the automobile. For god’s sake, have you seen how much a gallon of gas is going for these days? He better make this whole wedding thing work, because I’m not driving to outer Mongolia for a second marriage.

Bachelor Party Update

The boys got together last Saturday and took Scott to the Giants game in the afternoon, and then we spent the rest of the evening counseling the homeless on the streets of San Francisco. It was heartwarming to see a group of grown men put so much into extending compassion and charity to the city’s downtrodden.

Scott was particularly taken by a young woman who was so poor, she could hardly afford to keep herself clothed. His compassion came in the form of dollar bills, destined to get the poor woman back on her feet.

Tuxedo Update

I went to pick up my tuxedo for the wedding earlier this evening. It’s a black number (Scott couldn’t talk Christine into the powder blue jobs), with a lilac vest and tie. At least, I am told that it is “lilac”. It looks purple to me.

The tux is not flattering on me. I actually looked good in a tuxedo once. That time is not now. I'm hoping there are no papparazzi at the wedding.


Me & Ry at the last wedding I was in