A wedding is an event. A day to celebrate the love and life long commitment of two people. Surrounded by family, friends, distant relatives, people the bride is kind of friendly with at work, waitresses, bartenders, and a band or DJ that is hell bent on playing “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang whether people want to hear it or not a wedding is an exhausting day, both mentally and physically.

Golf is an event. A day committed to play and celebrate possibly the most challenging sport ever invented. A game usually enjoyed with friends, family, a friend of a friend who was in town for the weekend, random strangers, or three Chinese businessmen in town for a plastics convention, eighteen holes of golf is an exhausting day, both mentally and physically.

Now, imagine not one, but TWO weddings in a weekend followed by eighteen holes of golf for a guy who has never stepped foot on a golf course for reasons other than ‘drunk streaking’ or ‘evading local police.’

Exhausting isn’t a strong enough word.

The wedding where I dream about Bill Clinton…..

The wife got a ride to work in the morning. We were under the impression that if I picked her up from work at EXACTLY 4 p.m. we would avoid the afternoon traffic rush. Plus, who would be heading to Whippany, New Jersey on a picture perfect Spring afternoon?

The answer….drum roll……everyone and their fucking mother.

Beating traffic is impossible. Traffic is always there. Waiting. Thousands of people sitting in their cars at the ready to pull out onto the roads as soon as they get the signal you have turned on your car. The only way to beat the afternoon rush is to leave at 10 a.m. Traffic still knows. It always knows. It will crush your soul.

Stop. Go. Stop. Cut-off. Go. Hurry, make that yellow. STOP! COP!

The ride took longer than expected. We arrived at the hotel with enough time to shower, dress, and take in some Everybody Loves Raymond. I love staying in hotels. I especially love hotel cable. I like to pretend I just moved to the area and these are my new stations. Local news on channel 32. Check. ESPN on channel 6. Affirmative. Rentable porn available at all hours. I am going to like this new town. I especially love when I am in completely different time zone. “Oh my god, Seinfeld is on?? But it’s only 5 p.m. I have to wait until 7 p.m. at home. This is like Valhalla.”

The reception was packed. We were friends of the bride, knew the groom, but were complete strangers to almost every other single person in attendance. Fortunately, a close friend and his girlfriend were in attendance so we had other people to talk to throughout the evening. Dinner flew. Exhausted from a day of driving and work, we cut out a little early and headed straight to the hotel.

I got into bed but I didn’t do much sleeping if you catch my drift. No, it had nothing to do with sex. I’m incredibly particular about my sleeping arrangements. At home, the mattress is soft to the point of “awful for my back” and the pillows are thin and bendable. The hotel pillows were harder than Ron Jeremy at call time.  I tossed and turned and dreamed about the oddest subjects. Who did Bill Clinton run against for President? Did Phoebe Cates do any other nude scenes? Where the hell does a person get a nice corned beef sandwich these days? I drifted in and out of sleep pondering life’s great mysteries until the sun punched me in the eye sockets. I rolled over to check the clock. It must be at least 9 a.m…..somewhere! Holy balls it’s only 6:30 a.m.

Back to my corned beef.

The wedding where I get smacked for a good reason….

Much closer to home, the second wedding allowed us to skip hotel living and spend the night in our own bed.

A slide show welcomed guests to the reception. It featured the bride through the years, the groom through the years, and their happy life together before the big day. It was nice. The first, oh, seventy five times it played “These are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs. The bride is a coworker. I will be sure to thank her when she returns from her honeymoon by humming the same song all day long until it makes her brain eat itself to stop the madness. Consider it a belated wedding gift.

The couple chose “This Year’s Love” by David Gray as their wedding song. It’s also our wedding song. I’m not sure if it was the song, the drinks, the two weddings in two days or how devilishly handsome I look in a suit, but the wife blurted out she wanted to have kids. Now. I told her it’s a huge hotel and there were probably a ton of places where we wouldn’t get caught. She smacked me. Not what she meant. We both agreed kids would come after we moved in June. I told her that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t “practice” and suggested the coat closet in the main hallway. This smack was harder.

My motto is…

I watch golf. I talk about golf. I’d never been golfing. I wanted to golf. My friends Diesel and Danny agreed to be part of the hilarity because a) they love golf and b) any chance to laugh at me while playing golf is probably as close as you can get to a perfect afternoon.

“What are you ironing?” the wife asked while making breakfast before her Sunday excursion to the beach with friends.
“Pants.”
“You are wearing pants? It’s almost 90 degrees out, you are going to die.”
“Well I can’t wear shorts.”

My first lesson in golf. Shorts are allowed on public courses. This isn’t Augusta. My second lesson was how to carry the damn bag. What are all these straps??

10. 10. 10.

Those aren’t marks from the German judges for my fantastic ice routine.

Finally, a semi-respectable 7. I was enjoying myself. Normally, it takes about three minutes for me to hit the point of frustration and give up on anything difficult. The difference here was that I expected to be awful. Diesel gave me sound advice earlier in the week while planning for the day. “The first rule of golf” he explained “is to go out there and expect to suck.” I expected to spend the day in water and sand while never putting on a bathing suit. The fact that I occasionally hit a decent shot made this addictive.

I knelt down to check the green. Seemed pretty straight but I was about forty yards from the hole so I could be wrong. I pretended I was on a miniature golf course going head to head against my dad. In my youth, the old man and I had some epic battles on many a putt-putt course. The old man always beat me. I saved the scorecard from my only victory. I cocked back and gently tapped the ball forward.

Clink. In.

“BOGEY!” Danny yelled, as I pumped my fist and smiled like I’d just clinched the Ryder Cup for America.

Hooked. That was all it took.

Over beers and the world’s biggest hot dogs, we discussed the afternoon as I poured over the scorecard.

142. Not good. I did finish every hole, counted every stroke, and finished the back nine eleven strokes better than the front nine. Danny said of all the first-time golfers he has played with, I was far and away the best of the bunch. Something to build on for next time. There will be a next time.

“My motto is..!” a more than buzzed golfer yelled to his portly, and incredibly soused, foursome. He whispered the motto so only they could hear. What a tease.

The three of us guessed what the hell his motto could be. Glancing at his empty bottles on the bar it certainly wasn’t “just one because I’m driving.”

I decided that my weekend needed a motto. Something that would sum up the entire weekend. A play on an expression I heard countless people mutter over the past two days. With my own simple twist.

Happy wife. Happy life.
Happy husband? Happy wife probably let him go golfing.