Sergio gets married, I get hammered, everyone wins

My big trip of the summer was to attend Sergio’s wedding at Chattanooga TN. It was a great vacation, an emotional moment, and a mid-level bender all rolled into one.

Brownsox and I departed from Queens on Friday morning to do the airplane dance. Brownsox is running late of course, but at least this time he has a good excuse (NSFW, if you catch me). With minimal drama (we had about 5 minutes to make our connecting flight, but Regan is tiny) and only a drink or two in our bellies, we arrived in Chattanooga. We met up with Dubs and Irish McJew at the airport, then headed into town. The four of us were staying together at a Day’s Inn with Uber260, and of course Uber260 was the last one showing up. We check into the hotel, and instead of waiting for Uber260 to show up, we head out into town. Brownsox, who has to shower and blog (a state in which he spends his life, forever cursed to having to shower and blog, but never seeming to get it done. He is like Sisyphus with a crappy laptop instead of a boulder) will wait at the hotel for Uber260 while we find a place to eat and drink.

We head into downtown Chattanooga and get a lay of the land. There seems to be 2 central roads that most everything is on and we just walk down one of them. Eventually, we find a joint called Sticky Fingers, which our cabbie had recommended to us as great BBQ. We check it out. The décor is that of an Applebee’s if they took all the crap off of the wall, family dining and whatnot. We settled up to the ¾ island bar in the back, and checked out the tap. One of the great aspects of heading west of New York is the beers get better, and American Microbrews are in play. This bar has three different Microbrews from Atlanta on tap, and we go a’tasting. The bartender cards the three of us. This is important for two of reasons; one, because every single place in town would card us, no matter the situation; two, it quickly revealed us as ‘not from around here’. The bartender, luckily enough, was more amused what a guy from New York, Wisconsin, and Michigan were all doing drinking at a bar in Chattanooga. We all replied with a phrase we would break out repeatedly over the trip “friend’s wedding”. After a beer or two, we ordered up some grub. The place had potato skins that replaced bacon with pulled pork. I nearly cried. They did not disappoint. Eventually, Uber260 and Brownsox showed up. We all got some food (great ribs and pulled pork sandwiches) and more beers (Brownsox opted for Sam Adams, reveling his ‘ugly Yankee’ heritage). After gorging ourselves on the local goodies, we headed out to meet with Sergio.

Sergio was at the rehearsal dinner, which was happening at a nearby restaurant/brewery. When we arrived, the dinner was still going (they had been delayed, the reasons therein Sergio’s soon to be wife, TinRoof, would explain later). As Sergio was still hip deep in family, we sauntered over to the bar room, and played some pool. We did have a small problem with the bar where they would only give us the number of drinks as related to the number of IDs we showed at the bar, putting a cramp in sending one or two men to get drinks for the table. More importantly, it put a cramp in my ‘drink both a microbrew and a glass of bourbon at the same time’ plan, but I am crafty and would not be denied. We shot a couple games of pool (Dubs is very good, and I am not so good, so this led to me focusing more on drinking than playing), we caught up, and ended up into a oddly heated argument about The Dark Knight (I originally banned the topic from discussion, as what is there to say besides its great and we are pissed Heath died, but with big movie buffs Dubs and Uber260 around, I was lost). After a while, the dinner broke up and we hung out with Sergio, his best man Apostle (an old friend from Chicago, also recently married) and Tinroof. Tinroof tried to introduce us to her maids of honor, but there was a bit of a culture clash (Brownsox to girl: What do you do? Girl to B.S.: I work for the Bush administration. You? B.S. to girl: I write for the biggest liberal blog in the country. We ani’t getting any at this wedding). After a while Sergio went off with his family, but TinRoof hung out, and we all swapped stories about the groom to be (apparently the rehearsal was delayed as Sergio needed to get the right brand of hair gel, a fact I may never let him forget). Needless to say, I stand by my claim made in D.C., Sergio found a keeper. We had a couple of shots then wandered back to the hotel.

The next day, we met up with another college buddy, my old roommate, Columns O. Numbers. We all had lunch and wandered around town (drinking less than expected, hey, we had to go to wedding), forr a while until we needed to get ready. The wedding was in the next door town called Signal Mountain, which was on top of a mountain (this fact confused Dubs, who as a native Midwesterner, was confused about the idea of elevation). After a terrifying drive up a mountain country road to the church, (I debated its status of a mountain versus a hill, until I saw clouds below me and shut my mouth) we arrived at the location. We were hailed at the church as a kind of mini-celebrities, known as “Sergio’s college friends who came from all over.” It was a tad surprising having so many people I have never met both so happy to see me and so quick to figure out who I am without me saying so (I suspect that Brownsox’s appearance had a factor in IDing us, or just my yankee strut, whose to say) but everyone was very nice. The service was lovely, and featured two ministers, one guy who did most of everything, and one ‘ringer’ minister who gave the personal prayer part of the wedding (which was both sweet and funny). My booya at the end of the service was not backed, but not as frowned upon as it could have been. Now with the formalities done, time to party.

The reception is literally stumbling distance from our hotel, so as soon as we parked we set up shop. The reception consisted of an appetizer and dinner buffet, as well as wine and a keg of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat. I would drink the latter like a man in the dessert finding a mountain stream. Highlights of the reception includes
1: Getting drinks for the wedding party as they waited in the lobby for the bride and groom to show up (they more than most, deserve some Leines).
2: Watching some old boomshaka buddies perform as the wedding party arrived at the reception, then getting to catch up with them later.
3: Getting to hang out with two of Segio’s grad school friends, who were really cool people and seemed to find our crazy asses hilarious.
4: Accidentally walking down the aisle to the just married car before Segio and TinRoof came out (morale of that story, any act goes from disrespectful to funny if you raise the drink in your hand, and I was just trying to find my friends at the end of the row).
Once the happy couple was off, we all headed out to a nearby bar, which a really cool band playing. I stayed for a couple of drinks, but the overall weight of the evening got the best of me, and I packed it in early (also as number 4 suggests, I was drunk).

While getting home was a hassle (We were re-routed to Boston for Sunday night, and I had a bitch of a time getting to New York the next morning) it was a great experience. The town was very cool and friendly (although I have never been carded as often before in my life), I got a chance to catch up with a lot of people, some of which I have not seen in years, and the wedding itself was wonderful. Although when Mr. and Mrs. Sergio think back on their special day I will no doubt take the roll as inappropriately drunk guy, at least I handled my office with style and class.