After spending a few days in the greater Philly area, we hop in the rental car and take the turnpike west to Johnstown. It was actually a very pretty drive. Green hillsides, that typical dense Appalachian (or I guess in this case Allegheny?) foliage, and tons of dairy farms. I'd forgotten how much they smell like shit, which is ironic considering the daily reminders my own gas produces.

We check in to the hotel, kick it with the family for a little while, and get ready to go to the wedding. It was a sort of long ceremony, because it was a wedding mass; but it was fairly interesting. As we exit the chapel, the entire wedding party is lined up; and you're supposed to walk down the line shaking hands and what not. At the very end of the line is my uncle, father of the groom. This dude is probably 6'5, maybe 500lbs: he's a big.mother.fucker. I remember as a kid he scared me just by bellowing at me. I respect the hell out of him now, and even enjoy trading stories and a good laugh over beers. I look down the line and he's looking straight at me, and he's not smiling.

I'm frantically thinking if I did something bad in church, or maybe if my fly is down or something. I can't figure it out. I'm getting closer and closer, and I'm certain he's inside my head saying "I'm going to rip your arm off and beat you with the bloody stump." We get up to him, and before I can stammer a pathetic plea for mercy, he wraps his giant hand around mine, pulls me close and growls, "I paid a lot of money for this open bar, and I expect you and your brother to make sure these people don't make a profit." He releases me and I nearly pass out from terror.

We hop in the car with The Wife, my brother, his wife, and their baby; and I approach my brother.
"Dude, Tony says we have to put a serious dent in the bar tonight."
"Yeah, and I don't want to be roasted on a spit tomorrow for not following through on direct orders."
We converse with The Wives about our situation, mainly to make them aware that we are, in no uncertain terms, under strict directive to get retarded drunk.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling like 80 different kinds of ass. We get to the reception at this exclusive golf club, and it's gorgeous. For some reason, it's all I can do to keep my head off the table. I'm propped up in my seat like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. At The Wife's suggestion, I go grab some appetizers. It's at this point that I realize I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast, and that was nearly 8 hours ago. I grab a few small items, a glass of juice, and head back to the table. I'm hoping the food will deliver a pick me up.

Dinner comes around, and I'm only feeling slightly better. I've had probably a beer and a half, and they were in tiny 10oz glasses. My brother is looking at me like I'm a bitch, and I glance over at my Uncle's table and he's staring straight back at me sharpening a combat knife. God this is going to suck. I choke down the rest of the food, and pass on dessert. I just can't eat anymore. The cake is cut, and my brother grabs me by the collar and drags me up to the bar.
"Listen fuckstick, you need to get all your shit in one sock and start sucking back booze. I am not dying on this hill for you today."
"Dude, I am exhausted man. I seriously fe-"
"Yes, we'd like a beer and a bloody mary for my friend Shirley here," he says to the bartender. End of discussion. I'm feeling a little better, I guess because I'm no longer hypoglycemic, and I decide a bloody mary is a good starting point.
"Extra spicy, please," I add.

I love bloody's. Salsa that gets you drunk, a stroke of genius! I walk back to the table sipping my bloody and thinking that maybe my brother is right. I mean, free drinks all night? Sack up buddy!

After I have my first bloody I'm feeling normal. I hit the bar, order another spicy bloody, a beer for The Wife, and figure I'll throw a beer in for my brother too. Things are going good.

Forgive me the lack of details, as things come in and out of focus, but somewhere around bloody #6 I switch to doubles of whiskey with a beer back. We're running around the reception hall, in a god-forsaken conga line (which equates to failure of a field sobriety test in most states south of the Mason-Dixon), with our neckties hanging out of our back pockets. We take periodic bar breaks, and I continue with the double and a beer combo. I'm not even sure if my brother is drinking anymore. I guess he is.

On my fourth or fifth round of whiskey and beer at the bar, I slam my drinks and bring back The Wife's order. As soon as I drop her drink off to her, I know exactly what I must do. I must vomit. I think I actually jogged past her, handing her the beer, and sprinted the rest of the way to the mens room.

Keep in mind here that this is a private golf club.

I slam right through the bathroom door passing the stalls; for some reason that I do not know. Maybe it was because the bathroom door opened in, and in my highly inebriated state, I couldn't shut the door, then open the stall door behind it.

Before I'm within arms length of the urinal, I'm projectile vomiting into it. My momentum is so great, my drunkedness so clumsy, and the second heave is so hard that I hit my head on the urinal. I'm flushing and heaving at the same time, and I hear a familiar voice.
"Hey man! It's okay, you're going to be alright!"

I look up and I see my brother, who happens to be taking a leak in the urinal next to me. My world brightens; my brother! "Dude, I'm so glad you're here- GAHAAAHAHAAHAGAGGAGGGGG!" I have never been so happy to see my big brother in my entire life. What a great guy. Meanwhile, there's the Shank Brothers, one with his dick in one hand and the other on his brother's back, while Shank the Younger yacks gallons of vomit into the urinal. Well, that's sort of an exaggeration. It wasn't really going into the urinal at this point; I was making a Pollock out of the place.

I have this thing, I guess it's guilt, that makes me want to clean up my own puke. I don't throw up really at all, but ever since I was a kid I've always felt really bad about puking, and I always try to clean it up.

When my brother notices that I've grabbed some paper towels and I'm about to start cleaning up my puke, he grabs me and drags me out of the bathroom. And straight to the bar. He orders us both a beer, and says "Dude, that's sick! I can't believe you were about to clean that up. They've got people for that." I slam my beer and order another. There's nothing worse than that after barf mouthfeel.

We go back into the reception, and I simply continue the evening like I didn't just destroy the bathroom. I don't realize it at this point, but there's an ever so nuanced spattering of barf on my shoes and the bottom of my pant leg. Apparently no one else noticed either, because no one said shit to me all night. I see my cousin's (brother of the bride) girlfriend drinking scotch. I laugh and say, "That's awesome! Wanna trade?" "Well actually-," he says; but I walk off to do something else that I think is funny. I hit the bar, and rejoin the group. My cousin comes up to me and says "About that trade thing, heh." I look at him and say "Hey man, you're going to have to talk to my agent."
"Who's that?"
"The wife!" I yell as I laugh and change the subject. It's only funny once dude, I'm thinking to myself.

As we're getting ready to leave, my cousin comes up again and says "About that trade thing-". Thinking that he's kind of beating a dead joke, I ignore it and say "Well bro, looks like we're heading out. See you tomorrow?"
"Nah, we're flying out early in the morning."
"Ah damn. Well, we should do this more often," I say as I hop into my brother's rental and shut the door. I finally realize that my cousin is being a little creepy. I mean, I like the guy a lot, but not enough to let him take a swing at The Wife, sweet baby Jesus!

We get in the car, and everyone but the baby is drunk. Dad is buzzing hard and has become ornery, but subdued. My brother is drunk and happy, but not obliterated. That role was left entirely up to myself. The girls are drunk but since they're not morons, they look dead sober travelling with the three of us.

My brother hops behind the wheel, and Dad takes shotgun with his Blackberry GPS. He commences to shout the directions at my brother that his GPS is speaking.
"Turn right...onto...highway 211."
"TURN RIGHT ONTO 211!"
"Merge onto-"
"MERGE!!" he screams, frantically waving his hand in a rightward motion.
"Dad, I can hear the GPS," my brother says, speaking over him.
"Bullshit, ooo dunno where're goin," Dad slurs. He's like this when he's had four or so.
"I drove here, I can get us back."
"Betchu can't, feggin liar," he retorts.
"Actually. I can," he says, rather tersely.
"Fine. Buck a mile, but'n ooo get los, you owe ME buck."
"Deal."
"An I ain't sayin' shit." Dad emphasizes this last word by leaning over and giving my brother one of those big-eyed stares that parents do. My brother smiles, because he got what he wanted out of the deal; for dad to shut the hell up.

We get back to our hotel, and he and I are still ready to have some fun. I mean, it's only 9pm. We hit the bar right next door for a sixer, and decide that now is a perfect time to take my rental car (a Ford Focus) and test the limits of American engineering.

There was a big grassy vacant lot behind our hotel, and we decide that's an ideal location. We scout it out in his rental, an SUV, to make sure there aren't any hidden hazards in the undergrowth. The grass was about knee high, and the lot was bordered on two sides by a hedge, and one by a chainlink fence about four feet high that bordered a drainage gully about six feet deep. The lot checks out, so we grab the Focus.

This is a tradition that my brother and I have. We showed up to my wedding in a PT Cruiser that was covered from bumper to bumper in mud and foliage. Did you know those things can take a parking block at 20mph?

Anyways, I had purchased the extra insurance policy on my car for this exact purpose. We have a standard game that we play. One man takes the driver's seat, and the other is navigator. The driver, of course, pilots the vehicle at appropriately reckless speeds; while the navigator is in charge of. . . well, only the e-brake. Basically, he just pulls it when he decides it's a good time. So we end up going around this field in a large circle, doing powerslides and generally looking like two midgets trying to fuck a football. It's great fun.

We do maybe ten laps, and pull off to survey the damage. Well hell, all the mud is on one side of the car; so we jump back in and begin doing laps in the opposite direction. I stomp the gas and we tear off into the field. At about 40mph, my brother screams, yanks the e-brake, and I instinctively spin the wheel. The car comes to a complete halt.
"Dude, what's with the brake? I wasn't even turning!"
"Look to your left asshole!" I do as he says and realize that we're about two and a half feet from the chain link fence. If he hadn't grabbed that brake handle, we'd be planted firmly at the bottom of the gully. "Oooh, yeah. Thanks for that buddy." We tear off and continue our laps, this time minding the fence.

After a few more minutes of this, I decide to show off my road racing skills. We go into an empty parking lot, and begin doing a figure eight track around two light poles. We also take turns seeing who can do the longest power slide. Then on our way back to the parking space, I decide I might as well test the 5mph bumpers, and glide right into the corner of the hotel building. Everything checks out.

Satisfied with our road test of the 2006 Ford Focus, we slam the rest of the six pack and go up to bed.

This would be the last time in my life that I consume more than 10 drinks in one night.