Fat Man At a Wedding

I once wrote a poem titled "Fat Man In A Tie."

It was hilarious. And true.

I have had many fat moments in my life. That's just the way it is. I get undisciplined, I gain weight. Of course my natural habits and enjoyable excesses do not promote slimness.

What are you gonna do?

I will be fat at Craig & Amanda's wedding. Too late now, baby. If I went Christian Bale psycho from the beginning of the year until now, I would have lost weight. I am convinced of it. But I couldn't (wouldn't?) do it.

I am the father of the groom. A role that demands dignity. A fat man in a suit has no dignity.

Even worse, I refused to buy a suit because I thought I might lose some weight. Magically. Kept putting it off. Now I don't want to buy a suit because I would be buying a suit for someone else's body. Why spend big money on some fat slob?

Men's Wearhouse rents suits. Much cheaper. This is what I am reduced to. I called today to understand how this whole suit rental thing works. It is doable.

I am limited to the rental suits they have available, I pick what I want out of a book. They take measurements (they do minimal alterations on rentals), I pick the suit up 2 days before the wedding, I drop it off the day after the wedding.

Is it hard to drop off a suit with a hangover?

A combination of procrastination, delusional thinking, and laziness has forced me to take what I can get. As opposed to picking out a gorgeous suit that reflects the man I used to be.

I am going to have to get over this mind bump. This is Craig & Amanda's wedding - it is not about me. I wanted to look like Vito Corleone at Connie's wedding, I wanted to project Don Corleone's gravitas. Instead I will look like Louie Anderson (before he died), I will project the gravitas of Woody Allen.

Maybe I'll just throw on a burlap sack and write the word "Suit"on it in yellow marker. Save some money.

Hey listen, life is one unpredictable motherfucker. How to predict I'd be dealing with hormone therapy and a bum knee in "the year of the wedding"? Not possible. At least without those two setbacks I would have had a fighting chance at looking dignified. Then again, maybe I just didn't try hard enough.

I got a pretty face. Maybe that will distract people. Yeah, maybe that will cause them to overlook my bulbous gut. That's what I am going with. The Pretty Face offense.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.