Though perhaps not as profound or critical as the Soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar (“Beware the Ides of March”), which foreshadowed his assassination on March 15th, I am issuing a similar caution to myself (see title), as I have a strong premonition of relative unpleasantness that I foresee coming to fruition on this Saturday the 17th of March. No, I am not referring to the drinking, vomiting, and debauchery marathon that is St. Patrick’s Day. I’m referring to the drinking, vomiting, and debauchery marathon that will be my very good friend Damon’s Atlantic City bachelor party (which I was called upon recently to organize and plan). While I feel privileged and honored to have been assigned this most lofty of tasks, I have to somewhat question the logic Damon employed when he bestowed this honor upon the one friend who doesn’t enjoy gambling and who is completely unfamiliar with the town. The only real guidelines I was given to get me started was that it was to be in said city and that there is to be time allotted for nudie bars. Plenty of it. All I can think is that he’s banking on the idea that, after having lived with him for five years, I possess the most comprehensive insight into his affinity for smut.

So, while some degree of confusion is easily understandable, why the uneasiness? How could I, the once proud ringleader of late night mayhem and enabler of enablers, predict gloom and doom on what sounds like a most raucous and celebratory of occasions, you ask? I, myself, am not exactly sure but being thirty-three years old and engaged have to be heavily contributing factors to my palpable apprehension. Helping to raise a four year old, who rockets out of bed every morning at six as though he were launched out of a Ballista catapult, I’m sure makes a considerable contribution, as well.

I am simply a guy heading steadily out of Coolsville behind the wheel of a white Toyota Camry, who is now faced with several burning, if not relevant, questions in regards to his life as it pertains to this sordid affair.

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  Will I catch a little or a lot of grief from my beautiful fiancé (for the sake of protecting the innocent we’ll call her…Yvette) in the days prior to and following this soiree?

My guilt here is a foregone conclusion. Tales of my past idiotic endeavors have been so well documented by many of my good, good “buddies” and so enthusiastically shared with Yvette at every opportunity, that I don’t stand a chance. The stories are indeed funny and do warrant the humorous recounts but Yvette would live just as full and rich a life without ever hearing the more gruesome of the bunch. Yvette, being no stranger to a wild time, herself, and armed with an extremely active mind will, ergo, play out all sorts of unsavory scenarios in her head in which I commit the most heinous and unimaginable of offenses.

• Can I still throw-down like I used to?

(Although it’s purely coincidence that last month’s article “The Hookup” and this month’s put a partial focus on alcohol, in an effort to not continuously come off as a lush, I will simply refer you to the “Pace Yourself” portion of last month’s piece.

• Do I still want to throw-down like I used to?

Please see the “Pace Yourself” portion of last month’s piece.

• Have I actually achieved a higher state of awareness and maturity or have I just become a huge, emasculated wuss?

I believe the roads of excess have led me to the enlightened church of moderation and that the flames of stupidity now burn less brilliant within my soul. Here I stand happy, strong and stoic in my newfound wisdom. But to my friends, on March 17th, I will be a huge, emasulated wuss..

• How hard will my married friends be gunning for me?

Even though this isn’t my bachelor party there will surely be a price on my head. For years, as a single man, I was a consummate bad influence on friends who had a higher authority at home to answer to. While living in New York, I would often drag and keep them out until daybreak and return them to their wives in a sad, broken state. I had no empathy for the institution at that time and therefore was blind to the subsequent headaches (literal and figurative) I was surely causing them at home. Actually it wasn’t so much blindness as it was that I thought it was funny. Now it’s their time in the sun. Instant Karma.

• Aren’t we a little old for “bachelor parties”?

Couldn’t we all just spend a nice, relaxing weekend on the beach somewhere? I know the 1984 Tom Hank’s classic suggests otherwise but I can’t help but feel that the juvenile clichés and dogmas of the tradition bachelor party are more cut out for twenty-somethings who are still pumped full of testosterone and who, at heart, aren’t ready for marriage.

• Will I still be asking myself the above question as I’m getting a lapdance with a cocktail in my hand?
  
• After she reads this article, how much more grief will I be receiving from my beautiful fiancé, Yvette, in the days prior to and following this soiree?

Like I said, burning, important questions. Some will be answered while others will remain deeply shrouded within the mysteries of a little ditty called life. There is one thing, however, that I know for certain: Whether I get just a little drunk or very. Regardless of whether I prove to be a spiritual/intellectual forerunner or simply a whipped, delusional man. No matter if a stripper named Destiny bilks me out of twenty dollars or two-thousand -- I will be found guilty in a court of Yvette. Incriminated by my past and thereby sentenced accordingly.

But even as I stand warned, with the harbinger of pain in open sight, I will not cower. I will not seek mercy from the court for fulfilling my obligation and honoring my close friend’s wishes by partaking in this celebration of his marriage (an unwritten pact that is valid only for the first two, by the way). So, in a true display of martyrdom, I will endure the booze and the gambling and the strippers in Atlantic City just as I will tolerate the malignant glances, the icy stares of disgust, the snide remarks and the sensual voids that will surely await me at home. These things I will do for the greater cause.

I am proud. I am a man. I am in trouble.

| chad |