Last weekend, I drove up to San Fran to see my old college roommate, Antonio, get married. Tony was a party animal back then. He’d never fall asleep -- instead he’d pass out at various times and various places usually surrounded by empty bottles and some of his buddies whose shirts would go missing by the end of the night. Tony would miss long stretches of class but still get decent grades. The girls loved him, but none of them ever seemed “hot” enough for him.

I was happy to hear that he was finally settling down, though. The wedding was held in a garden at a local museum. I had on my navy pinstripe suit and my best shoes. I carried his wedding gift (a voice activated toaster) in my arms. I saw a few people I didn’t quite remember, gave them handshakes and hugs, and moved on. I put my gift down and sat in one of the white folding chairs that faced the altar.

I’ve seen a hundred weddings, so I knew exactly what to expect. The groomsmen come down the aisle and take their places, then the groom, then the bridesmaids... The thing was that instead of a series of single and lonely bridesmaids in tacky colored dresses, a second set of groomsmen came out. I did the classic double take, choked on my Bubbilicious. They lined up casually as if this made perfect sense. One of them was a woman in a man’s suit. I thought this was maybe some kind of elaborate joke. Maybe they’d pull off their man masks, and we’d all have a big laugh. But they never did.

And no one reacted to this insanity.

I realized then I was in an alternate universe -- a parallel dimension, if you will. And while I tried to figure out how to return to my own man/woman wedding world, I played it cool.

I shook everybody’s left hand. I sat down to pee and stood up for number two. I pressed down the gas on red lights and braked for green lights. I didn’t smoke cigarettes because I figured that in this universe, they’d be illegal. Instead I lit up some legal heroine.

But the problem was I couldn’t figure out how to get back. This universe was okay, but I wanted my own -- the beautiful one I lived in where things seemed right. What if I got stuck here forever and had to marry a man like Tony did? Not for me! Then just when I had given up hope, I went into a bar and drank my beer like a cat, my tongue flicking up the good stuff from the brim of my mug.

A beautiful, big-breasted, peach-smelling woman came by and asked if I was okay.

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking up from the drink.

“Umm… because of the way you’re drinking.”

“You don’t think this is normal?”

She giggled and shook her head.

“And what hand do you shake with?”

She lifted her right one.

“Would it be okay if I smoked heroin right here?” I asked her.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Yes!” I screamed. Of course it wouldn’t be a good idea because it was my own damn universe where it was illegal and only done behind closed doors. I was back in the place where I could marry this woman without it being out of the ordinary. In fact, I got down on one knee (my pants soaking up a small puddle of spilled beer) and asked her right there to marry me, man and woman.

She looked very confused and started to walk away.

“I see, you are the one in the wrong universe,” I said. “Boy, I know how that goes.”

I offered to help get her back to her own home, cozy in the bed of her own familiar universe, but she found her own way out, running frantically into the first cab she saw.