Bachlorette party or how I realized I'm older than dirt

I helped organize a surprise bachlorette party last night. An entertainer I am not, but a good liar, I apparently am. I was in charge of getting M. to the salon for a manicure (and if you read this blog faithfully, you know how I feel about being touched by strangers so you'll know this part was not my idea). She and S., her fiance and one of my running coaches, came over here on the premise that the four of us (including D.) were going out for dinner. I set out chips and dip and made it seem like we really were going to settle in for a while. Then the phone rang and it was for me. I told M. that the salon had just called to remind me of a nail appointment I'd forgotten. She was willing to come with me to catch up on her trashy magazine reading and the entire way to the salon she chatted about how she was sure S. was trying to surprise her with a really nice dinner tonight because he had insisted on her dressing up and how she'd confronted him and told him she'd guessed the surprise. She was just certain that he couldn't possibly surprise her. I just stayed outwardly non-committal through it all while inwardly laughing. She didn't even blink when I admitted I didn't quite know where the salon was, saying that someone had recommended it to me. Either I'm a really convincing liar or I am frequently stupidly air-headed! Good thing she knew where it was. Her face, when we walked in and she saw everyone there for her, was like a deer in headlights.

After the salon, we all drove to the local train station to leave our cars and caught rides uptown with the two women who weren't going to be staying past dinner. The plan was that those of us who went out after dinner could just take the train back to our cars. The best laid plans and all of that; but more on that later. Dinner was fun and laughter filled. Our end of the table spent a lot of time ogling one of the chefs. He really was quite cute. The funniest moment occurred when C1 offered to take C2's card over and give it to him since C2 was too embarrassed to do it herself. She's got some moxie, that C1 and she did it amidst much laughing and scrambling for the door! Wonder which one of us he thought it was from. And if he cooked my meal, the man is not only cute but he's a marvel in the kitchen. D., I love ya honey, and I'd never trade you but learning to do more in the kitchen than open a can of Chef Boy R Dee wouldn't hurt!

After dinner, I was tired (I am old, afterall) but still amenable to going out and since I was our bride-to-be's ride back to her fiance, I didn't really have a choice anyway. So we headed to a nearby bar where there were lines at absolutely every door. Luckily one of the women who was with us knew someone who got us past all of that and into the place. And this was where I started to feel my age. I've never been a huge fan of bars and have always been a bit claustrophbic so a bar on the weekend immediately preceding St. Patrick's Day was probably not the best choice. It was absolutely wall to wall people. Even worse, the people were all about 12 years old by my reckoning. We found a spot and basically rooted ourselves there although that apparently angered some ridiculous college students who must have used fake ID's to get in they looked so young because these charmers started shouting "F--- You!" in our general direction as they tried to make their way up to the bar. One of the advantages of being so clearly old, however, was pretending deafness and having the drunk toddlers not realize we were faking it. M. and D., who spent her entire time all night on her cell phone, texting or calling people (and I'm old enough that I thought this was incredibly rude to do at her friend's bachlorette party), kept making the acquaintance of young boys. As a short, slightly plump brunette, it was indeed eye opening to go out with tall blondes. In some ways I thought it would have been nice when I was younger to attract men so effortlessly but then I noticed how all these guys felt compelled to touch them and given my weird aversions, this skeeved me out. It reached the strangest culmination when one of the guys, having been told that we were a bachlorette party, asked where the strippers were and started unbuttoning his shirt for M. I think I threw up a little in my mouth when he started fondling his nipple for our benefit, although far better his own than M.'s! He was an odd duck, but this probably shouldn't have been a surprise given that we were trapped in a bar filled with people climbing down each others' throats as if they still lived at home with their parents and therefore couldn't possibly go home together. (Just how do you, as an 18 year old, tell mom and dad where you met the scantily clad young woman you've hauled home, when you clearly shouldn't have legally been in a bar? "Oh, and just ignore the fact that we're stuck together like barnacles too.") We did all get a chuckle over the music playing in the kiddie bar though, pretty confident in the fact that were were but among a handful of souls in the place who had actually been alive when "Jessie's Girl" originally came out. We definitely the only ones who knew all the words to "Mickey," cheerfully and loudly singing along.

We finally headed out to another bar but it too pointed up my decrepit age pretty rapidly although the rest of the folks weren't quite as young as the original bar. The pre-pubescent boys continued to hit on the tall blondes and M. dissolved into giggles when she asked one of them if he knew W. (my oldest son, who is almost 12). After he admitted he didn't, she cheerfully told him that she thought he looked like he might know him because he was in middle school too. I don't think he was terribly impressed, protesting that he was 31. Makes one wonder if he added 10 years to his age to seem more mature, because it didn't work. By the time we got to this bar, I was exhausted but trying to play along gamely when I really just wanted my bed (I was so tired I would have skipped the book!). We wandered around some but this bar was also incredibly crowded and moving was difficult. We did manage to get to the bathroom at one point where I had a drink thrown all down my back. Some drunk dingbat tossed her beer *at* the trash can (note I didn't say *in* the trash can) while I was standing waiting to wash my hands. It splashed all down my back and the back of the girl standing next to me. Charming, sticky beer all over me. :-P Apparently that was the proper aphrodesiac for this particular bar though as after I got drenched, I had two guys start dancing with me, including one who thought that it was perfectly acceptable to wrap and arm around my hips, rest his hand rather too close for comfort, and pelvic thrust at my rear. The rest of the women out with us were laughing hysterically at the look on my face. I suspect it was a cross between "I've just stepped in dog poo and can't scrape it off my shoe" and "Please stop dragging your fingernails down that chalkboard!" I guess it's no wonder I met my husband in a pool rather than at a bar given my complete lack of understanding or acceptance of bar ettiquette. Interestingly, we were not on the dance floor when either "dancing" (and I use the term lightly) incident happened. We did, however, eventually make it to the dance floor, where it was too tight really to move at all. (Case in point, as I was standing there swaying slightly--as close to dancing as proximity would permit--some guy trying to grope his dance partner behind me kept grabbing my butt instead of hers. I am way too old for bars where someone grabs your @ss by mistake and doesn't even notice his mistake because you are packed in like sardines.) Despite this, we managed to be stuck by a threesome of two guys and a girl really getting down, slithering up and down each other, bumping and grinding to beat the band. The one guy kept crashing into whichever one of us was closest to him. The only thing that kept me from wanting to stick a foot out and swipe his feet from underneath him (okay, it didn't keep me from wanting to do it, but it kept me from actually attempting to do it) was noting that with his rhythm, his odds of being crap in bed were off the charts. We all got a bit of a chuckle out of it. The boy really was a disaster but he sure thought he was all that and a bag of chips. I had been ready to go home for hours but I think what finally convinced everyone that it was time to go was when C1 used her elbow to just about deflate the boob of the woman behind her who was energetically bashing into her with complete abandon. Obviously most of us had about had it by then. Don't know whether it was age or wisdom or both but we headed out only to discover that the trains had stopped running a half and hour before. One more bit of evidence showcasing my geriatric nerdiness is that when we claimed our coats from the coat check girl, I noticed she had a book splayed face down on her counter. It was one I've read. It took major restraint for me not to ask her what she thought of it so far (and given that she wasn't reading it despite having no one in line before us, I suspect she wasn't loving it).

After a long cab ride back to the train station, with bride-to-be M. in the front seat lecturing the cab driver on his knowledge of the city and three of us in the back laughing madly, we all scattered our seperate ways. I delivered M. back to S. at my house (he was asleep on the couch and D. was sacked out in our bed since the poor man had to be up again in a mere two hours to catch a flight) and they headed home. And yes, as an old lady, I fell right into my bed and didn't wake up until the phone rang with the first of my family calling to wish T. a happy birthday. I have spent the majority of today trying to recover, not from a night of wild excess but from a night up many hours past my bedtime. It's like a hangover without earning the hangover.

S. sent us all an e-mail today: "Thank you all for the effort put forth on M.’s party. She had a blast and was completely surprised. Just one thing, next time you take her out don’t get her as drunk. I could not get her to stop talking the whole ride home. You sent me back a broken woman." That's impressive given that they live a good 30-45 minutes away. Bwahahahahahaha!

My favorite comment of the night? M2 looking at all the little hoochie mamas in their 2 sizes too small, barely there, strapless, twist-once-and-a-nipple-might-pop-out-and-hit-someone-in-the-eye dresses said, "This makes me feel right at home. I haven't seen so many boobs since I lived in New Jersey." Obviously these girls are too young to appreciate the idea of a little mystery, prefering the if you've got it, flaunt it (and if you don't, flaunt it anyway and maybe no one will notice you shouldn't) attitude.

Moral of the story: never go partying the night before your child has a birthday (the constant phone ringing the following day will never let you recover), especially if he's your baby and he's going to be 7. If this is the case, you are clearly old to be out past midnight. Just deal with it. Oh and it worries the heck out of me that my oldest child is *more* than halfway towards being old enough to be out at bars and my middle child is exactly halfway there. I am officially a wrinkly, pitiful crone.