Good Morning Part 3 of 3

I have never been able to pick my clothes out the day before.  I mean, scheduled occasions, sure. When I am called into service as Best Man.   I can tell you I am the best Best Man.

How to be the Best Best Man? Like all of life, it comes in threes. First, and this is hard, forget the groom. What matters is your legacy. The groom is a prop. A mop you dance with. The lead in any wedding is not the bride, it is the Best Man.   Barring an unfortunate turn of events –

Ok, so this really happened.  I had an assistant – she was very capable.  She invited me to her wedding, not as Best Man, but as her boss.  I hadn’t been to the venue.  So I get there and the place is gigantic.  Think Dubai but in the back woods.  At any rate, there is neon everywhere, and we do the cocktail hour and are led into an even bigger room where she and her husband are elevated, through a trap door in the floor that opened up to a rising platform, into the middle of the room.  Swear to god.  She was already three sheets.  Dinner, then toasts, where she toasted me calling me a great boss but “one demanding son of a bitch.”  She raised her glass to me, well, she and 500 guests raised their glass to the demanding son of a bitch, then I think she realized that she had called her boss a demanding son of a bitch, and passed out.  Went down like she got clotheslined.   I do not remember who the best man was at that wedding.  That was not a legacy option.  But that is also not that common.  … … here’s hoping.

Everyone knows what to expect from the bride and groom.  The only area for improvisation is the best man.  In order to fill your shoes, you need to forget the groom and focus on the niche you are going to carve in history. Do this right and there will be a child named after you. Do this wrong, and you are still the legacy. “Do you remember, and I am half hoping you don’t, the stripper who Dan hired? I told you I wanted bagpipes but that -”  See? Legacy. Forget the groom. The wedding is about you. Second. Pry open the wallet man. There is no room for frugality in your mission. Tip like you were afraid you were going to show up on Page Six. Buy everyone everything. And do not expect this to come back to you, it won’t. Three, you absolutely must not affiliate with the Maid Of Honor. But you must make it look like you are going to affiliate with the Maid Of Honor. Complicated, right? Here’s why you must exercise restraint. Because if you don’t, your legacy will not be the Genie Pants you wore doing You Can’t Touch This, that, um, never happened) it will always be that you affiliated with the Maid Of Honor. Remember. Legacy.

 

Of course nocturnal selection saves you time in the morning.  Further, it saves you that crushing disappointment when you visualize what you are going to wear and then:

1. Wrinkled like a sandwich wrapper
2. How did I not see that in the dryer
3. At the cleaners
4. Did I give that away?
5. Come on man, that fit two weeks ago
6. It looked like navy in the daylight

But no, I can’t pick out my clothes the night before.  Part of this is based on variables.  As I have already indicated, you cannot trust a weather prediction until you are standing in said weather yourself.   For me, there is the dairy factor.  If I have pizza the night before, I am 8 months pregnant the day after.  It’s a wild card.  And before you tell me, John, just don’t eat dairy, hey, YOU just don’t eat dairy.  Laundry is a variable.  Which is ridiculous if you think about it, I really only wear khakis and now in 2022 a suit.  There are now and again the random dress pants and this pair of corduroys (blue, with skiers, here – )

… but for the most part, khakis.   Khakis are not like children, I have favorites in a rotation, and then a sub rotation.  Yesterday I pulled a pair out of sub rotation, and there was no way I could have known that the night before.  I walked the dog yesterday morning – ok, went out in the back yard with the dog – and it was ice.  So I needed Filson boots, which MUST be worn with a heavier pant.

That’s a little in the weeds, but you take my meaning.  There is no way to know any of that in advance.

Which is not to say there are not benefits to laying out one’s clothes the night before.  The time it affords you to experiment.  I have tried three different ties on in the morning and the first two never wind up back in the tie drawer.  At night, I can put stuff away.  In the morning the race against burning Dino chicken bites in the oven, the dog and the guinea pig, and the whole routine laid out in prior posts, that leaves no time for follow up.

Please, get dressed in front of a mirror.  I don’t know any successful people who dress who do not.

Finally, not many people I know leave the house having drank all of the coffee they are going to drink for the day.  I have done the research for you.  Behold a summary of each Ivy bookstore’s travel mugs and their manufacturer.

1. Yale – Hydro Flask
2. Harvard – didn’t go and can’t figure it out
3. Columbia (roar) – Hydro Flask
4. Dartmouth – indeterminate but
5. Brown – travel mug is made of indeterminate brand
6. Penn – Hydro Flask
7. Princeton – indeterminate but it is Eugene Vacuum Insulated
8. Cornell – indeterminate

JB