And so, it's an early weekend for me. Crankypants is here, we're headed down to lovely over-crowded New York. (That's right. I work part-time. I have the best schedule ever, primarily because I get to make it myself.) Much has been planned, and it shall be a whirlwind trip, planned mainly by yours truly, because we all know what happens when I don't get my way. One would think I was an only child! - but I'm not.

While lying in bed last night, I was seized with a momentary panic. Why, you ask? Because, Friday night dinner will be the first time that crankypants has ever met someone I have been, ahem, intimately involved with.

Oh wait, I'm silly. Senior year - while we weren't dating - he came for a random visit, and met shithead (I have very good reasons for calling this particular guy shithead). At this point, I wasn't talking to shithead. But boy, was crankypants ever excited to meet shithead, and vice versa - and wouldn't you know it, guys being guys, they had a Height Contest to see who was taller. (Both are 6'4.) That's right. In the middle of someone else's birthday party, they just had to see who was really taller. Just - why? I will never understand guys. I was on the other side of the room downing shots at that point, so I'm not really sure who won.

I digress. Shithead only occupied, off and on, two years of my college years. Never trust guys who row crew, is my motto taken from that involvement. And also the "any guy with a 4-letter name is a bad name" theory definitely holds true. And I don't talk to him much anymore, even though he lives in Boston, because well, he sucks. Nick holds a much more important place in my life.

But now, I don't know what to expect when the two meet. After all, Nick refers to crankypants as "that thing in Virginia." And crankypants has always been amused by stories of Nick's persistence. And now the two shall meet. What's going to happen?

Is Nick going to play cool? Or is he going to (stupidly) attempt to stake some sort of claim, and only bring up conversation topics that deal with our undergraduate years and people that only the two of us know?

And how is crankypants going to react? Is he going to be at all proprietal? After all, he seems to be very rarely jealous of any other male (much to my everlasting annoyance). Or is he just going to be amused by Nick's demonstrations, seeing Nick as a harmless Maltese trying to take on a Doberman. (I don't know, I'm not so hot with analogies these days. It's the failing memory.)

I mean, they can't have a height contest to settle issues. Poor Nick is maybe 5'9. So that's out. What else can they compare? Who has the cooler wallet? Better hairdo? Best shoes?

Thankfully, there is the buffer of 9 other people to make things better, but wait. We can't count on Kevin for any sort of help, he's only going to egg on any potential fighting. And the girls - well, I can only hope they provide some succor, but who knows. And I don't even know crankypants's friends, so there's no aid from that corner.

Maybe I'm just overreacting, as I tend to do at times, but I'm not so sure. But I can't shake the feeling that this night isn't just going to be all cool and calm. Crankypants and Kevin, after all, do like to stir the pot. The former just can't get into his head that whatever pot he's gonna attempt to be stirring involves me. And plus, I have my cuddleparty prank to execute.

I'll just get raging drunk, and then I won't know what happened. The foolproof plan: when all else fails, go for denial and a lot of alcohol.

So if you happen to end up at the bar(s) we're at, I will be the one alone at the bar, wearing shoes in which I probably can't walk more than 20 feet, downing shots and making nice with the bartender.