Groomsman speech

I've got to tilt this thing down a little bit.

I'm going to be honest, I had actually a very hard time thinking of good Joel stories that I could tell tonight.

I talked to Max a couple weeks ago.

He had good stories, but he was using them in his own speech.

I talked to my parents the other day.

They had a lot of stories, but none that I felt really captured the essence of who Joel is.

In a moment of total desperation, I actually tried calling Cooper to see if he had any ideas, but I never got past his secretary.

I think to understand why it's so hard to think of good Joel stories, you kind of have to know what the dynamic was of the Leavitt brothers when we were kids.

I, as the oldest, was usually off in a corner somewhere with my head in a book.

I was very quiet.

I was very independent.

And this was probably for the best, because Max needed a lot of attention,

throwing temper tantrums, running into walls,

stepping on rusty nails in third world countries.

This was Max.

And you really couldn't take your eyes off of him for a second.

As for Joel, I think I first met Joel when I was like 12.

I said to my parents one day, why is there this other room attached to Max's bathroom?

They said, that belongs to your younger brother.

I said, Max.

They said, no, no, there's another one.

He's even younger than Max.

His name is Joel.

I went in, and sure enough, there he was, sitting in a

hammock, picking his nose.

I introduced myself.

He seemed to know who I was.

He was very polite.

And we exchanged pleasantries and went our separate ways.

As the years went on, I'd run into Joel from time to time.

On a family trip, I might turn to look in the back of the rental van, and there he'd be, gazing quietly out the window, picking his nose.

And I'd wave, and he'd smile back.

And I might not see him again for several months.

Time went by.

I went to college.

I moved away.

But my parents would give me updates on Joel from time to time

At one point, they told me he'd started working as a firefighter, which sounded really impressive.

Until one day, they called, and they said, you should watch the news tonight.

There was a big house fire in Bethesda.

Joel's station was called.

He texted us this afternoon.

You'll actually be able to see him on the news story about the fire.

So I tuned in that night, excited to see Joel in action.

And sure enough, there was this house with flames pouring out of the doors and windows.

Firefighters are rushing in with hoses and axes, and they're running out with babies and puppies.

And in the middle of it all is Joel, clad head to toe in his firefighting gear,

holding his phone,

texting my parents to let them know that he'd be on TV that night.

At one point on what I had actually thought was just a routine family trip to Bloomington Indiana I actually found myself at Joel's college graduation.

I hadn't even known he was in college at the time.

And as I looked down on him, sitting amongst his fellow graduates, holding his diploma,

picking his nose, I couldn't help but feel a certain twinge of pride.

What followed was a somewhat prolonged job search, during which Joel learned that when filling out your application to join the police academy it's best not to mention the night you spent in jail under experience

That's a story probably best reserved for another occasion

But suffice it to say that, much like asking his older brothers to roast him at his own wedding, it was a mistake Joel won't be making again.

There was no need to worry.

Joel did eventually manage to land a really great position at Nellis Corporation

following what I'm sure was a highly competitive interview process

In which he promised to finally move out of our parents' house if they just gave him a weekly salary.

Before long, it came to my attention that Joel had begun seeing a young woman named Jill, and that this Jill had actually moved in with Joel and Max in their house in Washington, DC.

Although, instead of paying rent or her share of the utilities, she would just buy Joel a pair of sunglasses every once in a while.

An arrangement that I'm sure Joel genuinely believed made financial sense.

Following a few years of blissful cohabitation, and one unfortunate incident in which Jill walked in on Max while he was taking a shower, it was decided that it might be best if the two couples just struck off on their own.

Joel and Jill moved in together, and before long, I received an ecstatic call from my mother telling me that Jill had begun the process of converting to Judaism.

I was kind of baffled as to why anyone would want to do such a thing.

Until I learned that, despite his love of pork, and blondes, and paying retail prices, Joel is actually Jewish himself.

Through all of this, and as proud as I was of Joel and his many accomplishments, there was this feeling that I just couldn't really shake,

which is that I wasn't really sure what his point was.

I just wasn't really sure why he was there.

My parents already had one perfectly good child, and Max,

and having a third just seemed kind of superfluous.

This is a feeling that actually nagged at me for decades until finally just a few years ago the whole family was together We were talking about having kids for some reason, and I said that I would want to have probably no more than two myself and my mother immediately jumped in and said no no Elliot you have to have three like I did

because what if something happens to one of the first two

Some of you, I sense, are coming to the same realization I had in this moment, which is that Joel was always just the insurance child, in case I got hit by a truck, or Max drank a bottle of Windex, or something, the latter of which is, admittedly, still plausible.

So I thought maybe I would take this opportunity, while we're all here, and Joel's surrounded by his family and his friends, to just say, Joel, thank you for your service I know 30 years is a really long time to just kind of be on standby ready to jump in and assume the role of a real person at any moment.

So I just want to congratulate you, as you now move on to your new role as Jill's insurance husband

someone for her to fall back on in case she doesn't run into Oscar Isaac in a bar in the next few years.

But until that day, I just want to say mazel tov, and let's hear it once more for Joel, the insurance child of the leather family.