Chris’ Toast

April 25, 1998, 7:10 p.m.

Ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting...

Um, before I begin my toast, I want to explain something first. During the ceremony, some of you may have seen a bee briefly walking and flying around Mr. Chen and Angela as they came walking down the aisle. That was actually arranged for: Jan and Angela both work at Microsoft and everybody knows that all the best Microsoft products are delivered with bugs.

I’ver been thinking for quite a while about what I would say for this toast. Jan is someone who I’ve known, well, all my life. He’s a brother I love to death. And this is the first public address about and to the new couple. So I wanted this to be a good toast.

I began to think about the weddings I had been to and about what the best men at those weddings had said for their toasts. It seems to me that best men often use this opportunity to relate an amusing, witty, ideally embarrassing story or anecdote about the groom before all his friends and family, and before all his new-found relatives – so they know what they’ve gotten themselves into.

So at first I thought I might tell you all about the time when Jan and I were little kids, when Jan actually convinced me that girls did have cooties, and that when you got married you died of a cootie overdose.

Then I thought I might tell you all about the time when Jan as a fifth-grader was caught behind our garage having arranged a game of spin-the-bottle with just himself and seven other fifth grade girls.

But then I realized that I can’t tell you either of those stories, or any of the other typically amusing, witty and embarrassing best man stories. That’s because those stories never happened.

That fact is, growing up, Jan and I were far too in involved in other endeavors to be spending time with girls, spin-the-bottle, or any other games with cootie-bearing creatures.

I, myself, was involved with things like hermit crabs, pet rocks, Green Slime, and Sea Monkeys. These were the things that were going to bring me fame and fortune.

Jan, on the other hand, had chosen to frivolously waste away his youth with some new-fangled contraption called a "personal computer." To me, this was basically a television that got only one channel, so I didn’t think he had made the right move.

But, of course, Jan has had the last laugh on this one. Hermit crabs never got very big, pet rocks and Green Slime have long faded away into oblivion, and Sea Monkey stock just went down into single digits. Meanwhile, Jan has ended up with a fantastic job, in a fantastic city, working for a company whose stock has probably risen six points since I began speaking. And, of course, it was through Microsoft that Jan met Angela.

Now, it didn’t come as much surprise when Jan told me that he and Angela were going to get married. Angela is an incredibly intelligent woman, and has obviously realized the cutting wit, the searing intelligence and the chiseled good looks that run, well, throughout the Miksovsky line. She could tell that Jan is one in a million . . . well, one of two in a million.

And Jan is very smart as well. He’s seen in Angela a very sweet woman, a very beautiful woman, a woman who I’ve yet to see not smiling, and a woman who is actually willing to say ‘M as in Mary, I, K, S as in Sam, O, V as in Victor, S, K, Y as in Yellow’ for the rest of her life.

And, given that Angela is willing to spell out ‘Miksovsky’ for the rest of her life, I thought the very least I could do would be to say a few words directly to all my new relatives. Please forgive my poor Mandarin—it’s not what it used to be.

ni hao ma. wo shi (Jan) de di di. wo yie shi (Jan) de ban lang. wo de ming zhi shi (Chris Miksovsky). Dui bu qi, wo jiang de zhong wen hen cha. Wo xiang, wo zai duo he yi dian jiu, wo jiang de zhong wen gen hao.

wo zhi dao, (Miksovsky) shi yi ge you chang you nan de xing, ke shi (Angela) hen cuo ming, suo yi ta yi ding hen quai hui ba Miksovsky ping dwei. Jan yie shi hen cuo ming, da bu fun de shi huo, ta hui ba Miksovsky ping dwei.

Jan gen Angela shi tian zhao di she de yi dwei. Ta men shen zai shi yi ge dwei kuai le de fuu fu. Wo men ke yi kan dao ta men jiang hui you yi ge hen you fu chi de jia ting. Yi huo, ta men de xiao hai zi yeh yao xue ping you nan you changs de Miksovsky. Dui bu qi.

xie xie ni men chang jia ta men de huen li.

duo xia duo xia.

Now, I’m sure many of you are wondering what I’ve just said. I, myself, am wondering that. What I’ve hope I’ve just said is this:

Hello everybody. I am Jan's brother and the Best Man, Chris Miksovsky. Please excuse my poor Mandarin pronunciation - I am sure that after I have had much more to drink, I will be able to speak fluently.

Yes, I know, "Miksovsky" is a long and difficult last name, but Angela is very smart and she'll learn to spell it quickly. Jan is also very smart and he spells it correctly almost always.

Jan and Angela were a wonderful couple. They are now a wonderful husband and wife. And we can all look forward to them as a wonderful family.

Yes, their children will have to learn to spell Miksovsky, too. I'm sorry.

Thank you all for coming.

Thank you.

In all seriousness, though, we have seen Jan and Angela as a wonderful couple these last few years. We see them now as a wonderful husband and wife. And I do think we can all look forward to seeing them become a wonderful family.

Many of you won’t know this, but tomorrow not only marks the anniversary of the first full day Jan and Angela are husband and wife. It also marks the fourth anniversary of their very first meeting. Four years ago tomorrow, Jan and Angela met at a computer conference in Boston. They sat near each other at a seminar, exchanged some small talk, saw each other back at Microsoft, one thing lead to another, they fell in love, and now here I am wearing a rented suit and babbling Mandarin.

So on that note, I would now ask that everyone please raise their glasses and toast Jan and Angela: may your lives together be full of laughter, joy and love, and may tomorrow merely be the first—and fourth—of many, many, many happy anniversaries.

To Jan and Angela...

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