Humor by Michael Showalter

In one week, I will be a married man.

The question I am most commonly asked by my guy friends is, "Are you nervous?" To which I respond, "No. Why? Should I be?" Now I'm nervous about the fact that I'm not nervous. The question that I am most commonly asked by my women friends is, "Are you excited?" I have the same response. "No. Why? Should I be?" Full disclosure: I am excited, but I'll never cop to it. Never!

One more week of freedom and then I'm destined to an eternity of sharing my life with another person. What a drag! In reflecting on what was and what will be, I have compiled a short list of things that I will miss about my bachelorhood.

1. Let's start with the obvious: I will miss dating.

Oh, how I loved the small talk ("So, what are you going to order? I hear the (fill in special dish) is really good here," "What kind of throat lozenge do you prefer most?" "I've also been to Santa Fe!"), the anxiety ("I e-mailed her five minutes ago and she still hasn't written me back! She obviously hates me!") and the ambiguity ("She said she's not that into me. What does that mean?!").

2. I will miss hanging out with my buddies ("Guys, why don't we have girlfriends? We're such losers.").

3. I will miss my late-night carousing ("There's nothing on TV. I guess I'll just make a sandwich and watch 'Die Hard' again.").

4. I will miss eating cereal with a fork.

5. I will miss leaving the seat up with total impunity.

What a strange journey these past six months of wedding planning have been. Who knew flowers cost so much money? Who knew it would be so difficult to make a seating chart? Who knew that Williams-Sonoma had so many different types of serving pans?

A good friend told us when we were first engaged: "The wedding is not just the wedding itself. The wedding is everything leading up to the wedding. The wedding itself is just the curtain call." If that's true, then our wedding has been a five-act play.

Act 1 is when the main characters are introduced.

Our main characters, we soon discovered, are her mother and my mother. The De Niro and Pacino, if you will. Everyone else has a supporting role (myself and my fiancee included).

Act 2 has all the comedy set pieces.

On our invitations, the word "wedding" is accidentally misspelled and reads, "welding." They have to be redone.

Act 3 has some big action sequences set to music.

Imagine, if you will, a rocking song playing while the groom, me (brilliantly played by Matt Damon), tries on literally thousands of different blue ties, while his fiancee (played by my fiancee) doesn't like any of them.

Act 4 is the sad part in which some people tell you that they can't make it to the wedding -- and perhaps, more sadly, some people tell you that they can.

Act 5 happens next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Humor & Satire

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