Boston Shenanigans

I have a good story to tell from my weekend in Boston for our friends' Jay and Sadhna's wedding. The story has the potential to get me in trouble, but for some reason, I really don't think I care. First and foremost, apologies to my friend Sachin – he will not be amused that I've decided to tell this story, and the possibility remains I very well may be uninvited to Puja and Sachin's wedding, but for the sake of my audience's amusement, it's a risk I am willing to take.

So rewinding to the weekend of May 5-7th, 2006. Everyone must keep in mind that Jay and Sadhna's parents don't realize that both their children are raging alcoholics (one member of the couple has a tendency to urinate into people's luggage as if its a toilet, but I digress), and since both sets of parents don't drink, the wedding was dry. Of course, such an obstacle would not dissuade myself and our bunch of merry men (and women), so matters needed to be taken into our own hands. Realizing that we would be required to hit zero-to-sixty miles-per-hour almost immediately upon arrival (arrive at the hotel at 6pm, festivities begin at 7pm), I decided to give myself ample time to properly ramp up for the weekend's activities. Also, it didn't hurt that I was upgraded to first class on my flight and was able to drink about 6 glasses of wine in 2 hours on American Airlines' tab (side-quote from the stewardess: "Sir, you don't intend on driving do you? I'm required to ask by law since you've had a lot to drink"... and you know this man).

In any case, Saturday is where the fun begins. We all wake up at a decent hour, grab some lunch, and realize we need to start getting ready, as the wedding will begin at 3pm. Upon meeting everyone outside for the wedding procession to begin, my friends Charan, Naveen and Samir decide that we will require some refreshments to celebrate the blissful event, which immediately leads us Character's Bar and Grill, the restaurant attached directly to the hotel. We covertly enter the establishment to ensure that no aunties or uncles see us, and proceed to order a round of SoCo Limes, which go down easily. Another round of Sambuca, another round of SoCo Lime, and a pint of beer for all follow in short order. Finally, we decide we should head back to the wedding. The bill comes, and we come up with a hilarious idea: let's charge all the drinks to Sachin's room. Now, this is not a brilliant idea because we don't have to pay (on the contrary, we already decided we would split the costs later), but for everyone that knows Sachin, such a "joke" is grounds for a homicidal rage of epic proportions, which is obviously VERY funny to the rest of us. We dip back to the wedding, where the official ceremony has begun, but decide our buzzes could use some reinforcement. We head back to our favorite bartender, and proceed to repeat the drink order listed above. We again decide we should charge the drinks to Sachin's room, along with a few appetizers and anything else the bar is willing to sell us on credit.

Being the appreciative lads that we are, we decide to thank Sachin for his generosity in person. Once we return to the wedding and see Mr. Gupta, we offer our gratitude with a simple "Thanks, Sachin, thanks!", followed by a warm handshake. Clearly, our befuddled little Bachin has no idea what we're doing nor what we are thanking him for, but decides that our joke is funny and proceeds to approach random people with the same three-word thank you; clearly, the three of us find this even funnier than the original joke, and watch him running around thanking half of the wedding party. We continue to dip in and out of the wedding and take shots on Sachin's tab for another two hours, and by this point, Charan, Naveen, Samir and I are thoroughly lit up and thanking Sachin every second we see him. Sachin decides he needs to create his own "secret" word, so decides to start texting all of us "Sorry" over and over again, which again leads us to hysterical fits of laughter.

Fast forward to Sunday late morning. After dancing a storm and having a hell of time celebrating the newlyweds, we wake up to a belligerent Sachin screaming at us on the phone about charges made to the hotel. This, of course, leads us to even MORE fits of laughter as we can easily see the pulsating, throbbing vein in Bachin's neck about to burst from stress. Thankfully, I had an early afternoon flight to catch, so I packed up and got the hell out of Boston as fast as I could. Fast forward to my arrival into Chicago, and upon turning on my phone, I have 2 voice mails and 3 text messages from our dear friend.

Now, as I already stated earlier, we never intended for this to be anything more than a joke, but the first message from Sachin stated the following, verbatim:

"I tried having the charges removed from my room, but the hotel said that fraud was a big deal for the hotel, so I had to file a police report. I had to give them your name. Call me."

I saw this and started laughing hysterically, because again, anyone who knows Sachin knows that he is a horrible liar. I finally call Sachin back, and he's convulsing on the phone, screaming to have me call the hotel and have the charges moved to my room. I calmly inform him that I have no intention to do so (knowing this will only further infuriate him) but will pay him in cash upon his arrival into Chicago- of course, this is not acceptable. He threatens that the Boston Police Department will call me to discuss what legal repercussions I face due to fraudulently applying charges to another guests' room, and I again calmly inform him that I will be more than happy to discuss my federal offense with them- this of course does nothing to settle our enraged little friend.

Finally, after discussing the matter with Samir and Charan, it becomes known that Sachin is genuinely angered, so I call the hotel and have the charges moved to my room. It only becomes known later that the charges were never even actually on his credit card- instead, the charges were made to Jay's parents, who had paid for Sachin's room (they are very good family friends). Sachin is screaming that he had to explain the entire mess to Jay parents, and that his parents called us a bunch of thugs. I call Jay to explain the situation and inform him that we don't intend to stiff his parents. Jay's reaction? "Dude, Sachin has not talked to my parents, and quite frankly I doubt they care... I sure don't, since I'm going to have honeymoon sex for the next two weeks. See ya."

The funniest part was the final bill. You would think that the total would be well over $1,000 based on Sachin's outrage. You would think that for all the energy he invested into having the charges removed, we would have seriously compromised Jay's trust. You would think that the Boston Police Department and the Hotel would follow-up on this matter if this was grand theft and the like.

The total? $340.

Holla.