Catching-up part 1: Suburban Bachlorette Party

Wow, I have been out of it for a couple weeks, but it feels like it has been ages. I journeyed out to Colorado for the long weekend and my oldest friend M.'s wedding, made my first pulled-pork, returned totally exhausted but with an eye toward NYU, registered for my FSO exam and was offered a new job, whew! I guess I should just start from the top, but I have found that stories can lose their punch as time passes. I seem to lose interest in them and move on, thus the importance of this silly blog for me. Last Wednesday I said "goodbye" to New York and hopped a plane to the Wild West.

I arrived, had lunch with my Dad and was off to the bachelorette party. I had a bad feeling, as I always do prior to going out with this particular friend, but I tried to push that feeling aside and look forward to the evening. The first issue was a call I had gotten the night before, sweetly informing me that I owed the hosts of the party $50 for the limo and incidentals. I was not amused. I had purchased the bridesmaid dress, shoes, plane ticket, and all of these with pleasure. I love being a bridesmaid. But to be required to pay for something I had no part in planning and with no warning, well that pissed me off from the get-go, reminding me that I was not dealing with other grown-ups, but the extended adolescence of girls who grew-up and stayed put in the suburbs.

That aside, we began our evening at an overpriced, under serviced Mexican restaurant. Why? I have no idea, I think there was a rumor about Everclear in the margaritas and our young party planner (M.'s sister) thought it would be cool to try and get everyone wasted from the start. We left the restaurant and hopped in the limo out front (not before being lambasted by the sister's friend for not having cash for them, whatever). The limo had fake stars in the ceiling where a moon roof should have been and they changed color every 30 seconds or so. The bar had champagne glasses with nothing to put in them but Bud Light or Smirnoff and Coke. Our first stop was lady's night at Stampede.

Yes, Stampede was exactly what it sounds like, only exaggerated. You see I was in Colorado, a place where a few real "cowboy's" do exists and where even more fakes roam. We walked in and were handed 5 free drink tickets each. Hmmmm, I wonder what our selections for the evening will be. We were there, apparently, to get M. to ride the bull. She was already drunk from the Mexican spot and was not even entertaining the idea. We all slid into a banquet and began watching the train-wreck of a line dance unfolding before us. This was the place for big hair, big women and no rhythm! At this point I began to panic. We were not scheduled to be dropped back off by the limo until 2:30am and I was done with it all at 9:30pm. I had a minor meltdown, realized the situation was hopeless and settled in to ride it out. The funny thing is, when you give-up and stop fighting, sometimes that opens you up to the possibility of having a good time.

I wouldn't say it was great after that, but it when from being tragic to being a comedy of errors! M. wanted to leave and as we were calling the limo two women approached our table. "Which one of ya'll's gettin murdered?" The blond one twanged at us. The suburban girls didn't understand and she clarified by saying "married". The scraggly blond then told M. to run for the hills. When the group collectively stood-up for her fiance, the hillbilly girls snickered stating that "Girrrrl, your friends wanna do your man! You better watch that!" They then proceeded to tell us that we must stop by The Electric Cowboy for further festivities.

I guess the thing that made this whole interaction all the more humorous was the party I was with. These are all suburban girls/women, most of whom are married or have kids. They also were collectively dressed like a posse of hookers. It is a strange phenomenon that you frequently see in the no-man's land outside the city limits. Anyways, these girls range from beautiful to average, but were all the pretty bitches in high school. If you can picture this group being accosted by two hillbilly girls at The Stampede, then I am sure you can picture the expression on their faces. The sheer confusion and horror was too much! I savored the hilarity through impressions of the reckneckettes and begging to be taken to the E'lectric Cowboy all night.

The next stop was an "old favorite", the middle-age-piano-bar-hangout known as Sing Sings. We carried M. down the stairs and found the place empty aside from a table of 10 in the front row cheering-on the piano player. M. was drunk, bitchy and not impressed. So, the planners ordered us a round of shots and we carried the bride back up the stairs. At this point I suggested we skip to the grand finally: the strip club. How bad could that be? On the way, I had fun making dirty jokes with the resident bad-girl of the suburban posse, and the idea of ending the "tour de bad clubs" was a huge relief.

As we drove out of downtown and into a warehouse-ish district, I had the familiar feeling that this was not going to turn-out as planned. We dragged ourselves out of the and were informed that male strippers only perform on the weekends, tonight, being a Wednesday, was all ladies. Defeated, the party planners said we should at least go in for a drink. Now, I have been to strip clubs before, they can be fun and even classy. This was not one of those strip clubs. This was where overweight, old, desperate strippers go to dry hump. It was as nasty as it sounds. The staff tried to be accommodating and eventually called M. up on a side stage for a lap dance. They had a male ex-stripper in house to perform for her. She sat on her chair with the glazed-over look of a lush while the flabby, over the hill, balding "stripper" did a really pathetic dance for her. It was almost sad, but after the night we had, it just seemed right. The evening continued with a bout of explosive diarieah (not me, thank God!) at the strip club followed by walking through the drive-through at Del Taco. There was drama getting to cars and getting home before our time ran-out with the limo at 2:30. It did end though, mercifully it ended at 3am on Thursday morning.

The next night was the rehearsal dinner, where M. got trashed again, relying on me to coordinate details for the wedding day until midnight, then the wedding on Friday. The ceremony was beautiful, the venue was beautiful, the reception was tortuous. By 9:30 on Friday night I was weddinged-out. It was great to be a part of such an important event, for such important people in my life, but it was also so good to be done with it! To Happy Endings!