Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special Anniversary Edition of The Humor Column.

Special not only because I managed beat the stereotype and actually remember my own anniversary, but even more so because I also somehow managed to survive my first year as a married man!  They say that the first year is always the easiest, however “they” didn’t also spend that first year supporting their spouse through her final semesters of nursing school, which ended up being a challenge not only to our relationship, but also our health, finances, and overall mental stability, so just between you and me, anyone who still wants to claim that the first year is the easiest can go suck it…

Of course, the important thing to take from this, nonetheless, is that despite all of the stressed out lunch dates and an eternally messy house, we still managed to make it an entire year without clawing each other’s eyes out and at the end of the day, that’s about eleven months longer than some couples make it.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this revered union thus far, it’s that marriage is a delicate balance of tolerance, apathy, compassion, patience, dashing good looks, and most of all, humor … because when it’s three o’clock in the morning and you find yourself doing laundry so that your wife will have something relatively clean to wear the next day, laughing is about all you’ve got left to keep you from teetering over the edge of your own sanity!

But what can I say?  No matter how rocky the slopes or how dirty the dishes, I’m lucky because at the end of the day, I’ve actually got a pretty awesome wife.  “Just how awesome is she?” you ask?  Well…

• She buys me LEGOs for Christmas.
• Watching The Simpsons before going to bed is both allowed and encouraged.
• Whether I’m tweeting about something that seemed absolutely hilarious to me or simply taking pictures of our desserts to post to my blog, she embraces my dorkiness with a minimal amount of mockery.
• She proudly shares my affinity towards HoneyBaked Ham.
• She continues to watch movies with me that show up in my Netflix queue, despite an embarrassingly horrible track record that includes the likes of The Day the Earth Stood Still and Pineapple Express.
• She understands the importance of blasting our local ‘80s radio station when cruising around with the top down.
• She knows how to pick mixed drinks that I would like better than I ever seem to do myself.
• She plays video games, and not just the hip, flashy ones that come out for the Wii.
• She’s never once tried to suffocate me in my sleep, despite numerous allegations that I “snore like a goddamn buzz saw.”
• During a random walk down to our community pool, with each of us carrying our beach towels, she once made the classic geek reference, “This is just like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – you never go anywhere without your towel!”

Happy Anniversary, Sara!  Looking forward to many more awesome years to come…

You know, I never thought I’d catch myself saying this, but going to weddings really isn’t all that bad anymore.

And I suppose before girlfriends and wives the world over start printing that statement out to shove in front of their significant others who may very well have shown more than a tiny bit of resistance over weddings past, I should probably elaborate and explain that as a man, this certainly isn’t something that I’ve just been keeping tucked away all of these years – a secret adoration towards nuptial celebration by means of stuffy, rental clothing and The Electric Slide, that’s for sure!  No, no – this realization that attending presumably the happiest day in the lives of our closest friends and family isn’t a worse way to spend six to eight hours than, oh say, dental reconstructive surgery, is something that actually struck me quite recently when going through the motions at another friend’s wedding, or so I thought…

You see, up until this last weekend, attending another person’s wedding has always been at the very tippy-top of my list of arduous tasks, above even shopping for gifts on Christmas Eve and signing that final credit card receipt at the auto repair shop, but oddly enough, things didn’t go exactly as I have come to expect at this latest adventure in fondant and taffeta.  It took me a while to put my finger on it – the itchy tux was the same, the stereotypical music line-up was the same, the bride running around at her wits end was, of course, the same as it always was, but even with all of the usual aside, there was simply something in the air that made the entire production bearable. And then it hit me…

I was married.

I know, you’re probably scratching your head like a re-elected George W. Bush at this point, but think about it – if there’s one thing that can single-handedly change the course of your random wedding for the better, whether you’re trudging along in the wedding party itself or merely stuck in the audience witnessing the train wreck from your bow-laden chair, it’s having that designated sidekick of the female persuasion standing by, ready and waiting to help pull you out of awkward situations big and sometimes even bigger that can make all the difference.  Think about it:

• No vacancy at the singles table.
  As wacky and zany as it might be eating dinner with seven other random wedding guests whose only similarity just so happens to be their lack of a partner, there’s a special comfort to be taken in the simple notion that married people don’t get sat at the singles table. Don’t worry, you can still take all sorts of crazy pictures with the disposable cameras at the couples table just as well…

• No awkward, mother-of-the-bride hook-ups.
  I don’t know what it is about mothers at weddings, but even when their own daughters are getting hitched, it always seems like they still see just a bit more match-making potential in the confetti-filled air.  Fortunately, though, lines like, “I just think you’d love Annie’s cousin, Ashley!” seem to fade quietly into the night like a romantic, slow song paving the way for Mony Mony when you beat Mom to the punch and show up with your own pre-notarized match.

• No dance invitations from overly-amorous bridesmaids.
  You know what they say – if you can’t be with the one you love, then the least you can do is love the one who stumbled around the dance floor in your general vicinity for the last three hours because really, there’s nothing more attractive to a guy than a bridesmaid who’s opted to work through her jealousy of her best friend getting married before she did than by mixing eight martinis and a little dirty shuffle out on the dance floor.  Boy, is it nice to have an alternative to those dance requests!

• None of that bouquet / garter toss nonsense.
  And of course, by far the most dreaded wedding activity for every single man in attendance … let’s just say that sometimes it’s nice to be able to just sit back, sip that rum and coke, and smile while you chuckle, “Step right up, guys – no more garter toss for me…”

Mind you, in addition to these fine bullet points, there’s also that underlying knowledge from personal experience of just how absolutely, mind-numbingly crazy the whole wedding process can be from engagement to honeymoon, but really, after everything else, that’s all just icing on the cake in terms of enduring the celebrations of those who you hold most dear.  If you ask me, and remember – I’m a guy who’s been to way too many weddings in the last couple of years – if I had realized just how easy it is to get out of all that stuff, I’d have gotten married a long time ago!

Granted, I probably would’ve also eloped, but that’s an entirely different column altogether.  Nonetheless, congratulations to the bride and groom on their nuptials … especially my friend Tim, who can now take solace in the idea that he’ll never have to participate in the archaic male torture ritual that is the garter toss ever again.

That’s right, buddy – life really can be that sweet!

I mean, it’s completely normal to be expected to give up sex…and smiling…and pretty much all fun in general after you’re married, right?!

Oh, I kid, I kid – in all actuality, I really can’t tell you how the whole wedding thing went because I’m posting this from the past through the magic of time travel…and also the automatic-posting feature in Wordpress, too. I mean, really, how insensitive would that be if I sat down and wrote this week’s column the night of our wedding during the time when, well, you know, other things are intended to take place? Then all that stuff about no sex and no happiness would actually probably be frighteningly accurate – who would wish that kind of malice on a newlywed couple in exchange for a few mildly amusing jokes over their morning coffee?

Besides, if we skip to that part now, what’ll we have to look forward to at our 10-year anniversary?!

That said, you’ve really got just as much of an idea how this thing went as I do at this point, so how do you think it went? Did it snow on the beach during our ceremony? Did a sweet & spicy jerk chicken fight break out in the middle of our reception?? Maybe we didn’t even show up, opting to elope to Vegas after my fourth consecutive nervous breakdown with regards to the wedding plans “all coming together nicely” (translate to: “not coming together in the slightest”). I hear the desert is wonderful this time of year.

Wonderfully quiet, anyways…

Nah – I’ll put my money on the table like the quarter-slot gambling man that I am and guess that our wedding ended up turning out fantastic! The food was  served promptly , the music sounded  audible , and the flowers were all nothing short of  bouqueterrfic ! All of our guests had a great time  waiting for us to come talk to them for 30 seconds and the party didn’t end until  everyone had been tricked into doing the YMCA . At the end of the night, my bride and I were so  tired and couldn’t wait to  take a bath and go to bed over and over again. Ultimately, it was the best  way to spend $20,000 in a single evening ever.

* Humor Column Madlibs!!! Don’t think my answers were very funny? See if you can do any better yourself by filling in the blanks alove with your own hilarious answers!

I suppose really only time will tell whether or not I survived The Happiest Day of My Life, and if so, whether it also led into The Happiest Night of My Life as well … not that I’d write about that – got to keep a few things sacred, or at least held off for the special edition of my upcoming book! Then again, I’m not sure if those particular tales of bedroom wisdom and woe would help to increase or decrease sales, so in the meantime let’s just all hope that I had a swell time and leave it at that! Either way, I’ll be back next week – for real, not via time travel – and we’ll do our best to get back to poking fun at politics and pop culture and people who think it’s cute to dress up their pets, despite the clear psychological damage that’s being inflicted with every doggy-sized parka that comes off the shelf.

And just think, even better yet, this is the last time you’ll have to hear about all of the insanities that stem from weddings, their planning, and their execution … at least until my unborn daughter is…uh oh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here…

So this is it, folks – my last column as a single man, and not so much in the doppelganger or evil twin lurking out there in the shadows perspective so much as the no more checking out hot chicks at the mall and thinking that I still have a chance with them scenario. Although I suppose just for the record, I probably never really did have those chances even as a single bachelor out on the prowl, if you will…

Anyways, what this ultimately means for you is that when you hear from me next week, as you sit down with a fresh cup of joe and a smile on your face to read my next hilarious humor column, is that I’ll officially be a married man. At least that’s the plan as long as her father’s dowry clears, that is! They say that this is to be quite the surreal time – a defining moment in a man’s life when he bids farewell to “the good life” that is being single and wild and free in favor of “the better life” of being secure in the fact that you will only ever have sex with one single person for the rest of your days…if you can manage to keep yourself out of the doghouse, of course!

Even so, however, it’s really not that big of a deal to me because frankly, just between you and me, I never really was a very good bachelor anyways…

I mean, sure, maybe bachelorhood is a hoot for the guy who’s out every weekend partying with a chick on each arm and a beer somewhere in between, but for the guy who spends his Saturday nights eating pizza, playing video games, and posting to his blog about his noisy neighbors?! Not so much! You’d be hard-pressed to find a Red Bull ad or an article in Maxim highlighting all the rage that is your average Doritos-fueled, all-night LAN party where the XP raids are plentiful and the closest thing to an actual girl in attendance is the occasional pop-up advertising for Viagra and porn. The scent of Axe body spray amongst my crowd would be called Passive, but we’d still all be too afraid to actually put any of it on in fear of encouraging interaction with one of those fabled, estrogen-based life forms.

Wow – when you put it that way, it’s a wonder I even met the girl in the first place, let alone managed to trick her into marrying me!

In all seriousness, though, aside from all of the typical stereotypes with regrets to being single that have never really applied to me anyways (see crazy, drunken nights that seemed to last forever…), I think I’m fairly confident in saying that the transition into married life is one that I’m ready to welcome with open arms. The way I see it, the daily routines for the most party stay the same – the only difference is that soon I’ll have myself a hot wife to drudge through all of them with! Sure, it’ll also mean a few more dishes to clean up after dinner and a little less elbow room in the bathroom in the mornings, but then again, it’s also another name on the list of folks who are pretty much guaranteed to get me a gift at Christmastime and that, the wise men tell me, is but the beginning of the give and take that makes up the union of marriage!

Now that having been proclaimed for all the world to witness, how much longer do I still have to put off writing these vows? Some things will never change…

Alrighty, folks – we’re officially in panic mode!

And boy, am I tired. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t even be taking the break to write the here column, but the way I see it, there’s only so much time that a guy can spend on an elliptical before his legs have officially turned to pudding, after which his ability to burn calories via exercise is greatly diminished because scientists have proven that one needs to be able to physically move for exercise to really be effective. My current goal is just enough to bring my legs to that pudding status, but not so much that it drives me into the kitchen in search of pudding because that actually does sound quite delicious right now. But alas, my current diet limits me from anything that sounds delicious, yummy, scrumptious, or even late at night, just plain mediocre. Have I mentioned lately that I hate my diet?

Of course, all of this was prompted by the fact that I’ll be getting married now in roughly a little under four weeks, which I suppose is as good of a reason to lose a few pounds as any because I can definitely see the potential otherwise for a slightly awkward conversation long after the actual party has passed and we’re taking a look at the photos from our wedding photographer for the first time…

“What’s that? My bulbous ass is blocking the view of my lovely bride in nearly every shot?! Well, that’s understandable with the way they had us standing at the altar, what about later when we were dancing? You can almost see a little glimpse of her white dress there around me… How about during the cake cutting ceremony? Oh dear – we certainly won’t be sharing that photo with anybody else…”

That would be bad! And the problem is, frankly, that I’ve kind of let myself go lately, and by that I mean that I’ve consistently let myself go down to the local Chinese place for lunch instead of making something in my own kitchen that isn’t packed with approximately 350,000g of sodium and enough calories in each sweet, delectable bite of that delicious sesame chicken of theirs to warrant building a memorial to each customer’s health right there on the spot next to the complimentary duck sauce. Coupled with whatever amount of effort it takes to physically walk out to my car, into the Chinese place, and then back to the office as my official exercise regiment, I suppose it’s not too difficult to see just how I got myself in this sort of gargantuan predicament.

But I’ve tried the whole diet and exercise manifesto before – you’ve certainly read about those little bits of misery now and then scattered throughout my years like chocolate chips in a moist and chewy cookie fresh from the oven, just like Mom used to make. Eventually you get to the point where you start to wonder if you’re better off just being the fat guy instead of going through all of this thankless sweat and toil. I mean, hey – what doesn’t sound great about no more forcing yourself to go to the gym after a long day workin’ for the man, or forcing yourself to believe that the 6” subs at Subway are just as filling for lunch as their foot-long counterparts, or even not ordering dessert after dinner because the restaurant’s Super Chocolate Death Chocolate Cake Deluxe actually has more calories than the entire meal that you just ate?! Of course, on the other chubby hand of yours, there’s nothing like being told that you exceed the maximum weight limit for your favorite theme park rides, and those pesky little things called stairs are certainly going to be a bitch, and there’s just something a bit demoralizing about only being able to special order your clothes from Olaf the Tent Maker that really takes a toll on one’s self-esteem after a while…

Do you really want to be the guy who wears a t-shirt that can also sleep a family of six???

I, for one, certainly don’t, and so it seemed only fitting that I attempt to finally rid myself of this excess lard in time for my big day, but so far it saddens me to report that my attempts have been almost entirely futile. And at this point, I’ve tried a lot of different alternatives…

Recently I tried Slim-Fast, which boasts right there on the can that it “controls hunger for up to 4 HOURS.” It controls your hunger, alright, but not in the way that you’d either expect or welcome back on a regular basis. After drinking a couple of swigs myself, I figured that I could probably concoct the stuff just as easily in my own kitchen by cracking a couple of raw eggs into a glass of chocolate milk, and then just dumping the whole thing down the drain after a few whiffs of it removes my desire to consume just about anything for the next few hours!

I’ve tried all of those different kinds of healthy, 90-second meals like Lean Cuisine and Smart Ones and Healthy Choice, which again seem to follow the Slim-Fast diet method of make it taste like burnt plastic and they’ll settle for a very small portion of this crap. And that concept might actually work if I was trapped on a deserted island with nothing to eat but one lone Lean Cuisine at a time, but when there’s a full cupboard of supplemental snacks right around the corner, suddenly burnt plastic is just a speed bump on my way to real food.

I’ve even tried counting calories for every single solitary thing that I ingest, which seems to work for about three days until I find myself unable to figure out just how many calories are in that low-carb, whole-grain turkey wrap that I picked up for lunch. Sure, it works for a while, but let me tell you that there’s just something demoralizing about counting out exactly 13 potato chips onto a plate as a single serving that impedes by ability to be able to tolerate that dieting lifestyle for long!

Of course, when each of these individual efforts has failed me, I tend to revert over to my fall-back diet plan, which currently consists of saying, “Man, I’ve really got to start focusing on this diet…” and eating a salad for dinner that night, then repeating this process about every 2-3 weeks while eating whatever I want and watching loads of TV in between. The time for procrastination and shuffling of feet is over … the way I see it, I’ve got approximately two options left:

Scott’s Last-Ditch Attempt to Losing 21 Pounds in Four Easy Weeks:
1. Stop eating.
2. Choose least favorite limb, just in case step 1 doesn’t produce adequate results.

Boy, is it going to be interesting trying to figure out how to carry my bride over the threshold with only one arm…

If last week was the awesomest that wedding planning had to offer, then I think I might go so far as to say that flower planning is just about the antithesis of cake planning, at least in my book. And it’s not that I didn’t have a good time, I guess it’s just that if I never have to spend another minute of my life shopping for flowers, I think I’ll still be ok. And my bride-to-be shant not even worry – I don’t mind the occasional bouquet either in celebration or because I did something stupid, but as far as planning floral arrangements on an event level, just pick whatever you think looks best because I’m done…

For all of you florists out there in the audience, it probably hurts a little to hear this, but I’m sure it’s something that you kind of already know – you’re job just really isn’t all that interesting! I mean, I guess it works ok for you, but are you the kind of person who rushes home after work to watch the Oprah that you recorded that afternoon over a Lean Cuisine microwave dinner and a glass of iced tea? I thought so, but there’s really no need to feel ashamed or anything – at least not about the iced tea – for without you, there’d be nobody to remind the rest of us how interesting our lives are! It’s just the circle of life, or the circle of boredom, so to speak. Nothing personal.

Anyways, we dedicated a good bit of time last week to searching out floral arrangements to be worn or carried or made into hats or something for our wedding. I don’t know – I honestly wasn’t really paying attention after the first seven hours of rosy fun, but from what I understand, the crown of sunflowers and daffodils that I’m to wear during the ceremony is going to look very nice! I didn’t ask if they’re also going to get me the matching corncob scepter to go along with the crown, but knowing how color-coordinated everything else has to be with this thing, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to be waving my sceptre of corn into the air, fending off seagulls as my beautiful bride walks down that aisle with her buckwheat bouquet! You know what they say – you only get to look like a complete fool at your own wedding once…

Any instances after that are just sad.

Maybe if they just weren’t so expensive, I wouldn’t mind the fact that I couldn’t really care less about them, but like everything else that we’ve signed official contract-y things for throughout the planning process, apparently it just doesn’t truly depict our undying love for one another unless we limp away from the table wondering, “How many more kidneys are we going to have to sell to pay for all of this?!” Which, at least as far as the flowers were concerned, is kind of a shame because in between the actual flower shops that we visited, we also passed some very nice cemeteries that even from the road looked rather promising! They were all pretty large, so they should have a great variety and really no problems coordinating with the rest of our theme, and they were even right on the way from our house to the hotel, so it would be no trouble at all to simply stop off on our way over and grab bouquets for the bride and her bridesmaids, a few single flowers to turn into boutonnières for the guys – who knows, maybe even my royal scepter!

But alas, just like my idea to hire a one-man-band didn’t fly for the evening’s entertainment, my great, cost-saving cemetery floral plan got overruled in favor of one of those “actual” (read “boring”) florists. So we’ll see how it goes – Tales from the Crypt bouquets or not, they’re still just boring flowers, so if anybody needs me, I’ll be pouting over by the cake…

Scott has been waiting for this day for a long time, my friends!

So long that it’s got him speaking in the third person and it doesn’t even phase him in the least, and being the prolific writer that he is, he usually tries to steer away from sneaky antics like that, but well, I guess it pretty much goes without saying that chocolate can do funny things to people and at the end of the day our hero here is still only human.

Sorry about that, folks, but like the guy said, being a mere human who certainly isn’t immune to the sensual tauntings that chocolate has been known to set forth, I’ve really been looking forward to this part of the wedding planning process! Sure, the search for the venue itself was well worth it once we finally found someplace that didn’t require two arms and a leg to host our event for the evening (studies show that couples who don’t give their various appendages to pay for their weddings are much happier once they begin their married lives together). The tasting that said venue later gave us to sample the menu that will be served on our big night was certainly a highlight, too, but nonetheless the best of the best still can’t hold a candle to dessert!

The cake that we’re planning for our wedding is going to be packed with an extra helping of awesome, though, because we’ve enlisted my family’s very own cake-baking all-star, my Mom, to bake this delectable masterpiece herself. The design, of course, ties back into the general theme that we’ve chosen for our gathering, meaning that this bountiful pastry will be covered with seashells and coral and all sorts of other goodies found under the sea…or at least chocolate and sugar representations of them. I guess the real thing would be kind of gross, now that you mention it…

So while the “exterior” of this heavenly treat is pretty much in the bank, this weekend we’re faced with quite arguably an even greater task – determining what’s to be found underneath all of that delicious frosting and chocolate and multi-colored sugar. And oh, with so many choices – white chake, chocolate cake, yellow cake, strawberry cake, swirl cake …crème filling, fudge filling, fruit filling, merengue filling – I don’t know about you, but my mouth is a-waterin’ just thinking about it! By my approximations, we’re looking at roughly 843,000 cake and filling combinations, meaning that both A) the chances of my losing weight prior to this wedding are decreasing by about 843,000 : 1; and B) this is going to be the best part of the wedding planning process, hands down! I mean, not that choosing napkin colors or stationery shades for the invitations hasn’t been great and all, but stacked up against double-chocolate-swirl cake with a rich filling of fresh strawberries, all buried underneath a dentist-enraging mountain of fudge frosting, those linens never really stood much of a chance anyways…

I know, it’s going to be a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it, and seeing as I’ve got a good 27 years of birthday-cake-eating experience under my belt (and sadly also over my belt at this point…), I think I’m more than qualified to give this important task the dudiligence that it deserves!

If you don’t hear from me next week, chances are a sugar-induced coma got the best of me, but at least know that I went out with a smile on my face and at least three pounds of Mom’s incredible fudge frosting in my belly! Mmmm – said that way, it really doesn’t sound that bad…

I’m getting cold feet, but don’t worry – it’s not what you think.

In fact, it’s actually much, much worse because I literally get cold feet every time I go to bed with my fiancée. We both snuggle into bed all cozy and warm, only for me to awaken about five hours into the night with miniature icicles hanging from my toes, all the while she continues to slumber ever-so-soundly, her feet as warm as a summer campfire. Also, my share of the blankets that would normally be allocated to the region of my feet are now currently residing somewhere underneath her left elbow. Now I’m no rocket scientist, but I think there’s something of a correlation to be made here…

Hint: It involves my fiancée completely and relentlessly hogging all of our blankets once I’ve fallen a slumber and thus let my guard down.

And the problem is, she’s really good at it, to the point where it wouldn’t really surprise me to learn that she actually earns extra money on the weekends by teaching other women how to monopolize the blankets in bed to simulate igloo-like sleeping conditions for their men. I’m not exactly sure just how much of a market there is for a service like that, but I guess if there’s one thing that us men can learn from co-existing with the opposite sex, it’s that they don’t necessarily need a reason to do whatever it is that they’re doing – case in point: shaving ones eyebrows, only to then immediately draw them back on.

I think the worst thing is that the following morning she never fails to enjoy a good chuckle over it, despite the fact that I had to spend thirty minutes unthawing my feet before I was able to physically move my toes. You see, the blanket thieving actually only accounts for part of her system, for prior to ever even wiggling into bed, my angel first insists on dropping the thermostat a handful of degrees cooler than the normal, comfortable temperature that we usually keep the house during the day. She knows what’s about to happen, and yet she cranks down the air anyways, almost as if she’s either trying to freeze me out to pave the way for her new, woollier fiancé that is better equipped for regulating his own body temperature, or she’s prepping me to eventually be cryogenically frozen like Walt Disney.

Either way, not necessarily my cup of iced tea…

So what’s a foot lover to do, and I meant that in regards to my own feet – not in some creepy way … not that there’s anything wrong with appreciating a freshly-pedicured pair on a hot summer’s night. Of course, in my world, I’ll never actually know what a hot summer’s night feels like because my bedroom is the equivalent of the arctic circle, except that at least there I’d have penguins to keep me entertained while I’m freezing to death! It’s certainly one of the more arduous deeds that our relationship has encountered thus far, and we’ve endured holidays together – two Christmases, a Valentine’s Day, and one particularly challenging Cinco de Mayo. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t wish cold feet on even my worst of enemies.

Well, ok – maybe my worst of enemies, but I’m sure they did something equally horrible to earn such a title in the first place.

Sadly, my options are limited, and I didn’t mean that in the extraordinarily depressing way that it reads when you put it down on paper! My options for my cold feet problem are limited, that is – sure, I could buy a pair of slippers, but who wears slippers in Florida?! And besides, they don’t make Bert & Ernie slippers in my size anyways. Many a times I’ve threatened to staple the blankets down to the bed frame to ensure that they’ll be shared proportionately, but that would require me actually finding my staple gun and my fiancée has thus far been successful in calling my bluff. I’ve also considering maybe just lighting a small campfire in the corner of the bedroom – you know, nothing huge, but big enough to keep me warm and also offer a venue for s’mores should hunger strike in the middle of the night – but I’m not sure if our lease mentions anything regarding campfires and I’m kind of afraid to ask…

It seems as though at this point maybe I’m simply destined to have cold feet, always shivering in the awe of my soon-to-be-wife’s warm, healthy, and happy tootsies. That’s right, I just used the word tootsies in a serious tense – clearly I’m looking valuable oxygen or blood flow or something during the great deep freeze down there!

Anyways, to all of the other guys out there who have wives and girlfriends that my fiancée may or may not have taught how to freeze them out of house and home, please accept my sincere apologies for any lack of feeling in your extremities that you may experience. I’d like to say that I feel your pain, but at least I can tell you this – after a while, you won’t feel anything at all…

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m just happy to be here at all this week!

I know, I know – I too thought that last week’s run-in with death a la acupuncture would’ve been more than enough excitement for mild-mannered, little old me, but apparently that death-defying half hour was only the tip of the iceberg when compared to how I would spend the following weekend! Folks, I’ve been places that men weren’t intended to travel, seen things that those luckiest will never see, so the least I can do is share my own plights in an effort to prevent you, my brave, brave readers from suffering the same cruel fate in the future…

This weekend I went to a bridal show.

Yeah, so the name probably should’ve been my first clue, but silly, irrational me thought that while the title itself targeted the little girls who’ve been dreaming of their wedding day since before they left their mother’s wombs, there could very well still be something to be enjoyed by us grooms as well. It was sold to me as the best place to gather information for planning a wedding because everyone is together in one place, and while those of us dudes who are actually interested in helping to plan our own weddings are sadly quite few and far between, there’d still be a place for us at the bridal show, right? We were the few, the proud, the five guys who were brave, bold … and stupid enough to step forth and strive to take an active role in the most important day of our lives, and I don’t know about all of them because I think a few have still yet to come to, but boy – I certainly didn’t see that stampede coming!

You’ve heard the term “like a deer in the headlights,” but somehow that one just doesn’t quite paint the picture of what happened in Downtown Tampa that afternoon. You remember that scene in the original Jurassic Park movie when the T-Rex first learns that he can get out of his pen? One of the first people he takes out is the lawyer that was hiding out in the port-a-john, and that’s the best way that I can think to describe it – “like getting torn in two by a Tyrannosaurus Rex when you absolutely least expect it!” Because that dude certainly didn’t see it coming, and quite frankly, neither did we…

It’s one of those things that you truly have to experience firsthand in order to grasp the magnitude of it all – maybe you had a sister or friend who was engaged, or for the truly initiated, maybe you opted to just skip out the middleman and propose to one of them yourself (not your sister, mind you…), god help your soul! You see, when that fateful engagement ring is placed upon a woman’s finger, a transformation of sorts takes place – even in the very best of them. Some, as you know, become that legendary title of Bridezilla, while others may undertake the slightly less ravishing stance of Grand Queen Over All Things Wedding-Related, but regardless, all brides big and small develop an aura known simply as Bridal Rage – a force that has been known to level small cities and bring entire populations to their knees, all over a misunderstood photography contract or an ivory chair cover that appears to be more of an off-white or a snow color under the lights at the site of the actual reception. Many of you are nodding your heads in solemn understanding, having experienced Bridal Rage yourselves when a loved one completely and utterly lost it during her own wedding planning. Those of you who are scratching your heads don’t know just how truly blissful your ignorance really is in this particular situation…

To describe the setting in the convention hall that afternoon in the most eloquent of ways – it was like locking a dozen or so rabid wolverines into a tiny broom closet and letting them duke it out, with the one exception that there’s a chance that eventually the wolverines might get bored of fighting and just call it a day. But of course, any groom will profess that this will never happen in the bridal world – not until every last flower, dress, and napkin color has been chosen, vetoed, and returned to once again. For your average bride, the “excitement” (insanity, to the rest of us) begins the moment that engagement ring settles on her finger and doesn’t cease until the plane ride back from her honeymoon in Oahu or Aruba or whatever other tropical getaway she’s been destined since birth to honeymoon at. If you’ve ever watched a dog chase its own tail for hours out in the backyard with a disturbing degree of persistence, you know the look of a bride who comes to the local bridal show ready and willing to plan her big day, at any and all costs!

I didn’t get a chance to check with the other guys (read: they weren’t allowed to talk to me), but the majority of my afternoon was pretty much spent dodging brides, their mothers and bridesmaids as they darted from booth to booth, carrying an increasingly heavy stack of pamphlets that my own bride accumulated throughout the day, and occasionally chuckling sheepishly when vendors would joke about how I’d probably rather be at home drinking beer and watching the big game than doing all of this wedding crap. Beer and sports – not so much, but don’t tempt me with sweet, sweet freedom nonetheless…

Would I do it again? [Expletive Deleted] no! And not necessarily because I’m an insensitive groom, mind you, but just like how those girls wouldn’t feel comfortable at a sci-fi convention or camping out in the woods, sometimes it’s better to simply know your place and that there are some places you just don’t go. Besides, between the Internet and the yellow pages, there are still plenty of avenues for a curious groom like me to get my proverbial planning feet wet without further endangering my own life – better off leaving the cat fights over DJs and photographers at these things to the professionals, thus doing my part to ensure that I’ll actually be physically able to attend our own little soiree!

Next week, we’ll return with a slightly less death-defying episode of The Humor Column, primarily because these old bones just can’t take it anymore! Whether you’re seeking me for a blood donation or to solicit your services as a wedding seismologist or whatever, take note that I’ll officially be on vacation until further notice. Any questions, take it up with the woman – she’ll be the one carrying roughly 83 pounds of literature about honeymooning in the Cayman Islands…

…so that’s where we stand at this point, anyways. If you’ve been reading along over the last month, you’re well aware at this point that I’ve gone and done gotten myself engaged – to get married, of all things! And really, if this is news to you at this point … where have you been?! Get with the program and go read my last three columns – we’ll wait.

Some people’s kids, I tell ya…

Anyways, while the hunt and the purchasing of the ring itself, not to mention working up the nerve to actually offer up said ring in exchange for my fair lady’s hand for all eternity, did prove to be just a tad bit stressful at times, I am somewhat happy to say that at least for now, I’ve yet to find myself overwhelmed with the barrage of stress and chaos that seems to be looming just over the ever-approaching wedding planning horizon. Much like a storm in the distance or an uninvited relative, I can tell that it’s coming, but at least for the time being I’m just trying to relax and enjoy these new days of being a definitely not single man…

Of course, friends who’ve been in my shoes before – figuratively speaking, at least – will vouch that these relationship vacation days certainly won’t last long, and a quick look around definitely confirms that notion. Maybe it’s the anxiousness by my new fiancée to tell everyone – even random people in the mall who we don’t even know and very well might not even speak English – about our recent engagement and how our wedding will be the fairest gala in all the land, maybe it’s the uncontrollable giddiness when we pass by anything that’s simply the color white, even if it’s not necessarily wedding-related, but it’s clear that these days of relaxing, decision-less bliss are to be short-lived at best.

I think above all else, though, the telltale sign that my life is about to go into a frenzy of a tailspin is defined by the ever-expanding library of wedding magazines that have begun popping up around our house. I once only scoffed at them in the grocery store checkout line, wondering who would possibly purchase these mammoth tomes month after month while enjoying a good laugh at the latest Make Him Give You Really Adequate Sex headlines on the cover of Cosmo, but even now it’s already become painfully clear to me that wedding planning is quite the hot commodity!

I mean, how else could these folks churn out half a dozen completely different wedding planning bible magazines every month, with each individual mag containing half a phone book’s number of pages and about a quarter of the actual content?! These people thrive on guys like me – the young, innocent, and in the right light sometimes even arguably attractive – to build their customer base by slipping those magic rings on women’s fingers. From there, the work is simple as long as they’ve got 500 pictures of designer dresses and one writer on staff to churn out lists all day of What not to forget the day of your perfect wedding… and What to absolutely, positively not forget the day of your perfect wedding… The advertisers probably don’t even bother writing checks – they just send over giant dump trucks full of cash…

So I guess it probably goes without saying that aside from figuring out how I’m possibly going to dispose of approximately 100,000 bridal magazines that our household is set to accumulate between now and that fateful day, there will likely be a few other areas in which I’ll be asked of my opinion so as to make our special day all merry and bright (not unlike Christmas, although I’m fairly confident that she wouldn’t exactly go for that particular theme…). As to the level of my own personal involvement … well, I’d like to say that I’m going to try my best to beat the typical guy stereotype and participate in planning a bit more than just the DJ and the honeymoon, however I’ve also seen just how absolutely crazy those sales folks involved even at the engagement ring level can get, so let’s just wait and see how that one pans out first!

In the meantime, however, if you don’t mind I’d like to get back to the peace and quiet that I’m currently enjoying via margarita and a new book. If crazy wedding planning chaos comes knocking on the door looking for me, just take down his number and let him know that I’ll get back to him in a few weeks! For now I’d just like to savor the calm just as long as I possibly can…