is a Bavarian wedding. I’m not really sure which is more important in such a regional affair, the unbridled alcohol abuse by everyone over the age of 16, or the abject humiliation of the bridal pair.

The intentional self-poisoning began on Thursday, with the Bachelor party. Pubs were crawled, bottoms were pinched, and, in the end, Rube showed that he could still run with the young dogs.

There’s Rube, passed out in a chair in some nightclub he doesn’t even know the name of, at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. And yes, the next morning’s 9 o’clock meeting was a rousing, unqualified disaster, thanks for asking. By some weird twist of fate, Friday night was the birthday party of a family of immigrants out of somewhere over in Vampireland, which is anything east of Czechoslovakia. That was good for yet another night of binge drinking, though I must admit the heart, she was not really in it.

Which brings us to Saturday, the aforementioned wedding. Apparently, it’s traditional in Bavaria to steal and make a copy of the Groom’s house key while he’s not paying attention. On the day of the wedding, while he’s preparing to feed and bedrink his guests, they break into his apartment and trash the place. I heard stories of dismantled furniture, toilets stuffed with chocolate, pulled circuit breakers, and something about 150 gallons of mashed potatoes. With friends like these...

The entire evening of the Wedding was an endless stream of humiliation for the groom, the pinnacle of which must have been when we, in the tradition of the region, kidnapped his bride, took her out drinking, and he had to come search for us. I’m not exactly sure what the point of that particular ritual is, but she seemed to enjoy it just a little too much.

At any rate, congratulations to Herr Doktor Probst and his lovely new bride Martina for a beautiful wedding, and my heartfelt sympathies for the fact that some asshole went through his cd collection and swapped all the cases.