Oh, What a Night

Despite what you may think, it takes a lot for me to get into the hijinx that I manage to find myself in regularly. A big part of that is alcohol. But the other part of the equation is my two partners in crime, girlfriends S and R. And when we all go out together, it's guaranteed to be an entertaining night.

One of the most memorable of these nights occurred a few months ago. We had a pleasant dinner in the lower east side and then stood on the street trying to figure out what bar we should go to. While we were arguing, this guy wearing a shirt that read, "ERIK'S BACHELOR PARTY" approached us.

"What are you girls doing tonight?" he asked.

Even though I'm usually hostile to strangers, he was a totally vanilla white guy that seemed harmless enough, so I told him we were trying to figure out where to go.

"Well my friend Erik is having his bachelor party at this bar, so if you want to hang out with some chill guys and have free shots, you should come on by," he told us.

Being a fan of free booze, I turned to R and S to see if they were down, and they both shrugged so we followed the dude into the random bar to attend Erik's bachelor party.

On the way in, the bouncer took one look at the guy leading us in and the three of us, laughed, and told R, "I'll be seeing you in a few minutes. Trust me."

Slightly confused, I followed the guy up to the bachelor party, losing R and S along the way, and entered a room filled with about thirty guys watching a basketball game. My lone presence and short dress obviously flustered them because one of them shouted out, "Awesome, the stripper's here!"

I realized that R and S had lagged behind and I was in a precarious situation, so I laughed awkwardly and then bolted away to find R and S and drag them back with me. After we made it clear that we were NOT there to strip for them, we were introduced to the man of the hour, Erik.

"I hear congratulations are in order," I said to him, "When's the wedding? Are you excited?"

"It's in October. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready to get married. I mean, if you wanted to go home with me tonight, I'd be totally down," he responded.

My condolences to Erik's fiance because I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm not sure it's going to work out. I declined Erik's invitation and pounded a few free shots with the rest of the bachelors. Despite the free shots, it seemed to be a pretty low-key and therefore disappointing bachelor party, so we decided to get the hell outta there.

The bouncer, of course, laughed when he saw us: "I told you so. I knew you weren't going to like it there."

Then he turned to R and said to her, "You're a really fine lady. Would you mind if I got your number and took you out some time?"

R said, "Um, yeah," and ran away.

She meant, of course, that she would mind and was declining his invitation to go out, but the bouncer took it as a yes, she was enthusiastic to go out on a date with him.

He turned to S, confused, and said, "But she said yes. Why didn't she give me her phone number? When are we going to go out?"

At this point, S and I burst out laughing and ran away to join R and tease her.

We were trying to figure out a plan of attack, since Erik's bachelor party had been such a letdown, when I noticed a table of three guys sitting alone watching the basketball game at a table next to us. They were all super cute and there were three of them, and three of us. Perfect!

So I sat myself down at their table, introduced myself, and started chatting with them. After signalling to R and S that they were cool and they should join us, R and S came over to sit down.

This part of the night gets slightly blurry, because we started ordering tequila shots like they were going out of style. It was as if someone had told us that Jose Cuervo was shutting down the next day, because every five minutes we would hail the waitress over and ask for another round of shots. They had to go down to the basement at some point and restock because they ran out.

The guys, it turned out, were all single, nice finance guys originally from DC, and were pretty entertaining once we started downing tequila. I believe it was S who originally proposed that we take shots and ordered the first round, but I lost track quickly after that. And after the bill came, the guys, being gentleman of course, insisted on paying for the many bottles of tequila we had consumed.

At some point they mentioned that they had an awesome roofdeck that they used to play beirut on, and S and R wanted to get their game on, so it was agreed upon that we would all go back to their apartment to play some beer pong.

They did, indeed, have an incredible roofdeck with views of Manhattan, and more importantly, a table, a case of cold beer, ping pong balls, and Solo cups. We put on music and I deejayed while everyone else alternated playing beirut and trash-talking each other across the table.

I came up with a nickname for S's teammate, after noticing that he had to go to the bathroom about every five minutes, and suggesting that he should get a catheter put in, or at the very least adult diapers. For the remainder of the night we referred to him as "Depends," and I honestly couldn't tell you what his real name is if my life "Depend"-ed on it. (Ha, puns are fun.)

At about 3AM, we ran out of beer, which was clearly a problem, so the guys ordered more (New York is obviously the greatest city in the world, if for no other reason than the fact that you can call and order a cold case of Bud Light to be delivered right to your door at 3AM).

S, bored of waiting, though, decided she was uncomfortable in her going-out clothes, so she threw her shoes in the corner and wandered into Depends' room and went through his closet. Deciding that his Brother Jimmy's t-shirt and basketball shorts were acceptable, despite the fact that they were about five times too big for her, she put them on. Then, feeling like a snack, she wandered down to their kitchen and went through the contents of their freezer until she found some Ben and Jerry's.

We were sitting around, munching on party mix, when S padded in innocently, looking like a five year-old who had put on her father's clothes, eating ice cream. R and I just looked at each other and fell over laughing while the guys were just kind of confused.

At about 5AM, I started to feel exhausted and ready to bail. I went to find S to tell her I was going home and found her changing into her own clothes, ready to go home as well. Then we went to fetch R, and the three of us walked out of the apartment.

We stood on the corner, laughing about our night and then I said, "Wait, I didn't give my phone number out. Did you guys?"

"Nope," both R and S said.

"So those guys just spent hundreds of dollars on alcohol for us all night, didn't get any, and didn't even get our numbers?"

Basically, yes.

So all in all, it was a terrific night out, although I am left with many lingering questions that may never be answered:

Did Erik's bachelor party ever get better? Did they eventually find real strippers? Will Erik go through with his marriage? If so, how many years will it be until she files for divorce? Did Depends ever solve his frequent urination problem? Is that bouncer still waiting to get R's number?

I guess we'll just never know...