Bachelor party

About a month ago, my friend Mark and I discussed how there ought to be strippers at John's bachelor party. Meet John and you'll know why this needed to happen; he's one of the straightest edged, most All-American goody two-shoed men that you'll ever come across, which in the eyes of Mark and I could mean only one thing: BOOBS IN JOHN'S FACE. ALL NIGHT LONG. What else could possibly be the more proper send-off?

If the stripper idea had panned out, two outcomes would have occurred which would have made for a spectacularly memorable evening: John would either hide in the corner of the room crying, or, in an even more remarkable parallel universe, he would -- midway through a lap dance -- take a nipple out of his mouth, lick some extra whipped cream off his lips, slap his stripper's butt, and squeak, "You guys are the greatest!"

Unfortunately, our wildest vicarious fantasies were cruelly dismantled when the best man, Jeff, informed us that the bar we were going to had no room for that kind of entertainment.

What the bar did have room for, however, was cosmic bowling.

Billiards.

Mingling.

Bachelor partyin' it up the way girlfriends and fiances and wives would be proud of.

Suffice it to say, Mark decided not to buy a plane ticket to Illinois anymore.

Well, I'm happy to report that Mark actually missed out on a good time. John's bachelor party last night, while devoid of any bare assets, turned out to be the most fun that a room full of 20 guys could ever have with each other. The open bar was the key to everything. I've never had that much Belvedere and Grey Goose in a span of four hours in my entire life. (Apparently, neither did Phil, who painted the inside of his girlfriend's car green while she drove him home last night.)

And bowling -- I despise bowling, not necessarily because I suck and own a career average of 62, but because I am completely mystified by how to keep score on paper, which we were forced to do last night -- can be so much fun when you are piss drunk and know that you have unlimited games for the rest of the night as a part of the party package. No one felt too awful at all about shot putting the bowling ball halfway down the lane.

You know those pesky shot girls in push-up bras at bars who always come around every five minutes with a tray of test tubes full of what looks like something they got out of an assorted pack of Hi-C juice boxes? People always brush these girls off and head towards the bar to get their money's worth of booze, and those poor shot girls will walk away in frustration, scanning the room desperately for any sucker willing to buy a weak six-dollar test tube shot. Sometimes I'll pity them and buy a girly shot for one of my female friends that I'm out with, but for the most part I'm just like the rest of the world, ignoring and avoiding.

But on a night like last night, where shreds of peeled beer bottle labels littered the tops of every table in our room, where the term "bachelor party" started sounding synonymous to "sausage fest", everyone charged at the shot girl like a pack of hungry wolves when she came by. It was hilarious to watch. We had an open bar and could have any drink on the shelf for free, yet here there were guys lining up with their wallets ready for this girl, just to take test tube shots off of her cleavage. Some schmuck even burnt twenty bucks on those fucking test tubes.

"What a waste of money," I told Dave. "If people are going to throw their cash at her like that, just for a better view of her tits, then we should have just gone to a strip club."

Dave shrugged, and said, "She's fun."

And a grinning Phil bragged, "I saw her first. Me and Dave were the ones who brought her into this room. But I saw her first."

And Jeff the Best Man begged the shot girl to give John another free shot, and the shot girl shook her head no. Six dollars.

And Larry continued bowling, letting out a sigh of relief because he was sober enough to know better.

And off to the side of the room was John, drunk off his ass, leaning against a wall, completely content, not caring about any stupid money-grubbing shot girls, happy as hell that his boys were there with him for his last-ever party as a single man.

When I saw this, it resonated with me that the party was for him, not for us. It wasn't about strippers, or tits, or boobs, or nipples, or aureolas. It was about John having his last hurrah, surrounded by the guys he's known for years.

At the end of the night as I was getting ready to leave, John pushed himself off of the wall, then stepped over to me and shook my hand as firmly and as professionally as John typically would. "Thanks for coming, Pete. I appreciate it."

He looked around and nodded, and said, "You guys are the greatest!"