I, on the other hand, felt like it was my duty as Best Man to make some sort of dramatic gesture...an empowering speech like a coach might give to his team minutes before the championship....like a general might give his troops before marching into ill-conceived battle for the last desperate hopes of saving the motherland....that sort of thing.

But I was coming up empty.

......tick.....tock....tick....tock....

Hurry! I thought, think of something! My mind flashed with the scenes from a thousand movies I have watched of this very moment.....where the Groom and Best Man are waiting anxiously, peering through the crack in the door to see people being seated....they are always discussing important things......what were they saying?? I can't remember! Damn! Why didn't I pay attention to those fucking Hugh Grant movies!!? This is important! Where is Jesse Jackson when you really need him?? Think of something to say!

.....tick....tock....tick....tock....

My friend pulled out the pocket watch and looked at it for the 287,165,304,628,307^th time.

I straightened my back in the tuxedo and tried to look confident and all-knowing. I looked him in the eye, and said:

�.........uh, you....uh...ready?�

What a dumbass. The thing that kills me is that I know he will be the Best Man in my wedding and he will probably do a fantastic Coach Ditka/General Patton/Jesse Jackson job of it. I'm not saying that anyone, including me, needs a pep-talk seven minutes before they are getting married � but it is a really important rite of passage in life and it would be nice to have your best friend say something inspiring and eloquent to mark the moment.

[EDITOR�S NOTE: The previous paragraph which mentions the words �my wedding� was re-written 17 times in an effort to psychologically analyze the way the author's girlfriend was going to interpret selected words. However, since the author and his girlfriend have been subjected to a steady stream of reminders over the past several months relating to weddings, engagements, marriage, rings, proposals, honeymoons, weddings, weddings, weddings � the author has chosen to accept the fact that no matter how he writes the paragraph, he has no control over how it may be interpreted, and should just relax. Hi, honey! :) ]

It wasn't like I had no time to prepare for this moment � like I had been roused from bed at 4 a.m. and suddenly told I had to be Best Man immediately and whisked away in a van to the church as masked gunmen fitted me with a tuxedo.....it wasn't like that at all. The gunmen drove a sedan.

Oh, and they roused me from bed a year before the wedding.

The problem was that I thought that all the Best Man was supposed to do was hand over the rings and make a good toast at the reception. I hadn't really planned ahead for the other moments, and figured I would just make it up as I went along. Handing over the rings wasn't a problem � I even kept a little napkin in my pocket to keep my hand from getting sweaty before the hand-off (I had heard stories of the rings being fumbled and dropped before). The reception toast was pretty much something I had figured out years before while sitting with my friend in a bar, and even told him so at the time. Surprisingly, he remembered my saying this, and asked me about it right before I gave my speech. If I could give any advice to potential Best-Men out there, it would be to as follows:

• The napkin in the pocket idea is pretty good.

• If for some bizarre reason you happen to get an idea for the toast for your best friends wedding approximately 7 years before it happens while the two of you are sitting at a bar, don't tell him. They tend to remember that sort of thing, and It leads to high expectations.

• Don't ever let the bride know that you came up with the idea for the toast at their wedding 7 years before while sitting at a bar with her finance, especially when you only met her 2 years ago.

• Think of something cool to say in the little chapel room.

That's about it. Other than that, the whole experience was quite beautiful. The church was gorgeous � a newly constructed �round� design (not the typical hall or cruciform shape), classically modern with a copper and brick exterior. The priest was a totally cool guy with a great sense of humor. The weather was perfect, the reception and hotel were picturesque....first-rate all around. In fact, when my girlfriend and I checked into the resort a couple of days before, we knew immediately we didn't want to leave. She took an extra day off of work so I could ask the hotel to extend our stay. They even upgraded us to a larger suite that was bigger than our entire apartment. This was a humbling experience rivaled only by the fact that invisible people kept it clean all the time, made our bed and left behind bottles of water which cost $14. We need to get some of those invisible people.

They're hard to catch, though.

 0 wrote to say im an idiot.