Your Cause for Celebration Quizo Update

Today's e-mail is going out a little late because I am operating at slightly less than 100% due to catching the plague this weekend. The illness itself isn't really terribly serious, but my overreaction to it certainly is. Massive alternating doses of orange juice and NyQuil (unfortunately the green kind, don't know how I got that) leaves one a little woozy.

I caught the plague at a wedding on Saturday, the last of this year's silly season. This year was certainly nowhere near as bad as last year - three weddings in four months doesn't even hold a candle to five in ten weeks - and the event itself was fun enough, I suppose. I had a nice little moment when I was talking separately to friends of mine who have been going out a long time. Let's call them... say... "Rich and Colleen of Huntingdon Valley, PA." At about the halfway point of the reception I was talking to Colleen.

"So when's your wedding?" I asked her.

Colleen looked at me blankly.

"I mean, maybe you don't have a date set yet, but like an idea on when maybe? Next summer, next fall, what're we talking? I'm a busy man, you know."

Colleen continued to stare at me as though I had suddenly sprouted a second head. I began to grow confused.

"What? Richie proposed a while ago now, didn't he?"

Stare.

"What the hell, he bought the ring, I know he did, it's not like..."

As Colleen's stare moved from blank uncomprehension to seething anger I realized that if any of the things I have just mentioned are actually true, which I was starting to seriously worry may not have been - i.e . proposing, buying a ring, etc - she knows nothing about any of them.

Oh dear.

I fled outside for a cigarette and when I came back in I motioned for Rich to come over and join me.

"So I just talked to Colleen," I said.

"Colleen's nice," Rich said, clearly on his way to being very drunk.

"Yeah, I, uh, I may have intimated some things that, uh, you might not have done yet. See I THOUGHT you had done them, so I was asking, and, uh..."

I've never seen someone sober up as quickly in my entire life than at that moment.

"What did you SAY?" he asked.

"I may have, uh, mentioned something about, uh, you buying a ring and, uh, proposing and, uh..." I struggled to find a way to wrap this up. "I think you may be engaged now."

Rich stared at me.

"Congratulations?" I said.

He punched me twice in the back of the head. I deserved it.

Part of the reason I am overreacting so strongly to getting sick is because I will be turning 30 on Friday and I need to be well for the gigantic birthday celebration at the Dark Horse Friday night. I figure you only turn 30 once so there might as well be a gigantic blowout bash. If you're reading this you're invited - we start at 9, get there early if you want a seat. It's going to get... er... crowded. However, if I am not operating at full capacity, not only will I not be able to fully enjoy the festivities, but I will succeed in getting everyone I know sick. While in a sort of academic sense that sounds interesting (if not fun outright) I don't want an army of plague-bearers bearing down on me this weekend while I'm trying to watch the new Futurama movie (comes out tomorrow!).

JLK