The Debate

Over St. Patrick's Day weekend 2007, the bachelor party I co-organized for my friend Brian went down. Ten friends made their way to Montreal, most of us from Boston but one flying in from Michigan and another from the Bay Area. The clockwork travel arrangements hit a serious snag when the only serious winter storm of the year hit on the Friday we were leaving; flights were canceled, surprises ended up sprung earlier than anticipated, a 5 hour drive became almost 11 hours.

But by midnight on St. Paddy's Day, all 10 of us were sitting in McLean's Pub, enjoying the oddly delicious burger-with-cream-cheese special and watching a member of our crew offend a suburban mother and her teenage daughter. (He had arrived the day before the storm, and had spent the entire day drinking and watching college basketball; at midnight, he loudly demanded that this poor woman tell him if the French word for 'douchebag' was 'sack du douche.') The weekend proceeded just as any gathering of male friends in their late 20s should, with some good drinks, good food, gambling, reminiscing, roasting and a dash of strippers.

(Note: if Brian's now-wife is reading this, there weren't really any strippers. We spent most of the early morning hours in Future Shop, staring at their HDTV selection.)

Why I Am Awesome: this party would not have succeeded without my planning. I served my co-best man title well, and as we checked out of the hotel I got to have one of my best friends in the world tell me he got exactly the bachelor party he wanted.

Things didn't look so hot on the Thursday night. As the week had progressed, the weather forecast had evolved from "meh, we'll be getting a couple of inches," to "there will be some accumulation," to "STORMTRACKER 2000 predicts that few will survive this, the ultimate revenge of Mother Nature." With two attendees already in Canada, and two others flying in from separate parts of the country, the whole trip looked on the verge of crumbling into disaster.

As the chief organizer, I sat in my darkened bedroom, with the sickly blue glow of WBZ's 11 O'Clock news flickering around me. Despite my girlfriend Lisa's best attempts to assuage me, I became convinced that I had screwed up the entire operation. I was the one who had picked this weekend. I had decided to plan a surprise around flights arriving without delays. I had gotten my hands on a simple plan, and since I was involved it had, inevitably, all gone to shit.

In other words, I threw a woe-is-me hissy fit. When Lisa pointed out gently that I was being completely ridiculous, I stormed out of the room, tearing a swath of destruction in my path.

(Destruction might be overstating it. This wasn't, like, a pre-Another-Brick-In-The-Wall-III flip out where I smashed the TV and threatened to toss a loved one out the window. I did slam the door to the bedroom as I stormed out to the bathroom, causing two chips of paint to fall off the door. But if you think Lisa has ever let me forget them, you are horribly wrong.)

Why I Am Not Awesome: Despite every positive element in my relatively quite privileged life, I felt the need to somehow try to blame the shifting of cold fronts and winter weather patterns on my own karma. In addition to a bachelor party for a friend, I decided to throw a whiny and immature pity party for myself. And I have the blood of two paint chips on my hands; and that blood will never wash off.