Did these twenty four hours actually happen?

Yesterday morning, I watched the sun rise as I was driving home on the LIE after a long night out. It was a surreal feeling, my brain slightly fogged by exhaustion, staring at the brightening sky as I headed east. During those twenty four hours, I had found myself in a subway relay station, an attendee to witness two weddings, a guest at a wedding reception, dancing in a night club, and lastly there was a visit to a different type of club, which sported brass poles from ceiling to floor. With a little embarrassment thrown in as well.

It was a loooong twenty four hours that I had spent awake. I spent much of Saturday recovering from it all. I must be getting old, as I found it all quite tiring. A mere month of sleeping a full eight hours has made my body incapable of doing all the craziness I was used to during the past two semesters.

To start with, I spent the day working with the MTA as a contractor at one of their under construction relay stations. After spending eight hours in a concrete room in the stifling heat listening to the rumble of trains passing by, I can't imagine how the linesmen deal with it. Only eight hours and I was all done in.

To be honest, they'd probably be in the air conditioned section of the station, but I wasn't so lucky. They hadn't installed the HVAC system as of yet. After we ran the tests on the equipment there, I was happy to remove my reflective orange vest and hard hat and ride in an air conditioned car back home.

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of the relay room, but that is exactly what the room contains. Racks and racks of relays tied together with miles of cable. The most interesting part of the relay room was the huge eight foot by eight foot panel showing all the switch points that this portion of the subway line had with knobs that allowed you to redirect a subway train from one line to another.

Once I returned home, I took a shower, put on a suit and headed to a nearby church. I was only thirty minutes early, but it seemed that the ceremony had already begun! How was it possible that I could be late? I watched as the bride and groom exchanged their vows and realized that the bride had blond hair. I was at the wrong wedding! As I glanced at my watch, I wondered to myself if I had gone to the wrong church. I was beginning to panic. I got up and walked into the lobby, where I saw the groom I was expecting to get married that evening.

Boy was I relieved at that point. We had a laugh over what had happened and he told me that I hadn't missed the wedding. I found out that his ceremony was the second wedding being held at the church that day. Everything went without a hitch at this point. No guests of honor disappearing with last moment jitters either.

I joined the happy couple at their wedding reception and had some fun. I danced with the bride, as well as her bridesmaids. (At that point, I regretted just a bit that I had not taken those dancing classes like I had intended to a while ago.) As the reception came to a close, some of my friends and a few members of the bridal party decided to go for a night cap. I decided that this was a good time to seize a bit of fun before classes started again and joined them.

After a couple of hours, the club closed down, but we weren't ready to call it a night. It was at this point that someone suggested that we head into New York City and go to a strip club. This someone happened to be the maid of honor. Keep in mind that we were still in the attire we attended the wedding in.

I didn't get a choice about calling it a night at this point. I didn't take my car to the club and didn't want to pay for a cab ride home. You might say that is still a choice. I tried to dissuade them.

Of course, I was the only guy who wasn't interested in going. The real reason that I wasn't keen on going is because of how much money you throw away in a strip club. After attending a wedding (and giving a wedding gift), I wasn't in the right frame of mind to go. I mean I had witnessed that happy affirmation of two people who wanted to live together as one.

I even tried that line. It didn't go very well for me. The maid of honor told me to stop being a party pooper and told me that I wasn't the one getting married. That pretty much put an end to my attempts to get out of it. We piled into a car and headed into Manhattan.

We stayed there for a couple of hours before calling it a night. I was quite sober at this point. Both of the bridesmaids that came along had received several dances. The guys were far more interested in that for some reason. I can't imagine why.

This particular club felt very different to me. The dancers weren't really interested in dancing very well on stage. They were only interested in relieving us of our cash, and they didn't try to hide that fact. There was no attempt to make us feel like we were valued. Or perhaps I only noticed it this time because I was sober. Something to ponder.

That pretty much was how the weekend went for me. I probably spent more on the night out afterwards than I spent on the gift I gave to the wedding couple. Pretty depressing to recount since I hadn't really planned on participating in any of the last bits, especially after having a full day to reflect on what had happened. I suppose you only live once.