Nurse the Hate: Hate the Bachelor Party

I was in Napa Valley last week.  It’s a beautiful place with beautiful people busy doing beautiful things.  It seemed like everywhere I turned, there was yet another bachelorette party.  Well scrubbed pretty girls smiling perfect white teeth for the cameras.  Packs of young girls in sundresses drinking white wine.  Nice girls having a nice time with their nice friends.  This is in utter contrast to the last bachelor party I hosted, an evening of stark ugliness and horrific events that have scarred some of the participants to this day.

I have been put in the position of bachelor party host a few times.  I have been a best man a number of times, but many of these didn’t feature the stereotypical bachelor party.  For my first job of hosting, most of my research had been done while attending bachelor parties in my early twenties.  These were all remarkably similar events.  The men assembled somewhere to play golf/cards.  Many beers were consumed.  Some half assed car pool was assembled on the fly to go to one of the shithole Cleveland strip bars and the bachelor would be placed on the stage with a stripper to perform a dance in front of the patrons of the shithole.  Many shots would be sent to the bachelor.  The bachelor would barf all over the car or the house where he returned.  There had to be a better way…

First off, I rented a room at a fairly upscale hotel.  The last thing I want to do is to clean up after the bachelor’s slob friends from his hometown get crazy.  These guys don’t know me, and they sure don’t care if I have to clean up their barf.  Second I bring in lots of good microbrew from my various nefarious contacts in the world of alcohol.  Let’s not fuck around with Bud Light.  Let’s get down to it.  Third, I rented some entertainment.  This is where things got interesting.

In the days before wide spread internet, it was not easy to rent strippers.  I also wanted to make the evening memorable, and wanted more of a “show”.  This was accomplished in the way things usually were done in the simpler times of the days or yore.  You called “a guy”.  Hey, I gotta book a limo.  You got a guy?  “Yeah, I got a guy… Call Jimmy.  He’ll set you up.”  I got the number of “some guy” that put me in touch with a woman that handled the booking for an operation called the Sisters of Sin.  It was never made exactly clear on what “The Sisters of Sin” did when they got to a place, and I never really asked because I wanted to seem like I was with it.  It was pretty inexpensive all things considered and the lady seemed OK, so I booked them for an hour.

When the bachelor party rolled around a group of guys assembled at the hotel that formed a few distinct alliances.  There were 1) old home town friends 2) college buddies 3) work buddies 4) family you had to invite or everyone would be uptight 4) my deviant pals that I knew would have a good time and add an element of chaos to the proceedings.  It’s always weird at the beginning of these things as everyone is unsure if people are cool, and what type of behavior is considered “acceptable”. This was no exception.  There were some real social/economic divisions in this room.  Everyone was sort of uptight until the beers kicked in and one of the college basketball tournament games came down to the buzzer.  That got everyone comfortable.  In what was almost perfect timing, the Sisters of Sin arrived within minutes of the end of the game.

I had assumed that the “Sisters of Sin” would look roughly like the strippers I saw in teen exploitation movies like “Bachelor Party” or “Risky Business”.  This was not the case.  These women looked like they escaped from a taping of Cops and tossed on too much foundation and perfume to cover up their lifestyle of cigarettes and taking a punch from their motorcycle gang “old men”.  I couldn’t imagine a less sexy group of women.  They were definitely not my type.  Despite my initial disappointment, a deal is a deal, and I led them into the room.  The leader of the Sisters asked me to turn on the music, which I had agreed to provide.  I did.  Little did she know, my idea of the proper music was “Las Vegas Grind”, a collection of strip club instrumentals from the sleazy early 1960s.  They attempted to dance sexily with each other while “Exit 6” blared from the boombox on the table.  It was a bit of a rough go.  One of them said, “What the fuck is this?”.  My band pals laughed like crazy as this music was the absolute ideal in our world.  It was a really awkward and terrible scene for everyone. 

This was when the Sisters showed their true professionalism.  Within moments they had assembled themselves into a human pyramid of sorts and began to stimulate one another with a group of surprisingly large vibrators and dildos.  Even the most jaded of us stopped dead in our tracks as we silently took in this new development.  With each passing minute, new combinations were created with toys inserted into places that I never expected.  Each new move ratcheted up the sleaze factor, and stopped all conversation completely as each member of the audience came to grips with what was happening.  It was, honestly, quite a show.  It was much more than I had ever expected.  I will frankly say that if I had been told, “How about you stand next to the bride’s relatives while three women you have never seen before perform unspeakable acts 18 inches away?” I might have taken a pass.  But I was all in now.  This was happening.

As the show climaxed, one of the Sisters raised her head and said “Who is the best man?”.  Everyone instantly pointed at me like a cop had asked “Who’s holding the PCP?”.  Gulp.  This water was a bit too deep for me.  My interest in being blown in front of 18 guys was and remains minuscule at best.  She offered to take me to the next room instead and I calmly deferred the honor.  Honestly, she scared me.  When she asked, “Which one of you guys wants to go in his place?” I was almost trampled by one of the groom’s high school buddies I had met only once at a family picnic years prior.  One of the others said, “We’ll be next door for anyone that wants to stop by”.  This was code for “if any of you guys want to buy a sex act, any sex act, come next door and we’ll work something out.” 

I probably should have done more research before bringing this “performing troupe” in for the party, but everyone appeared to be happy with how out of hand things had gotten.  The bride’s side of the party had all split, and I hoped that they would not freak out about the sleaze factor having hit 11.  This was when I was lassoed by a hotel employee that wanted to know what was going on, and where was the other TV I had promised to return to him earlier.  “Ummm.  Yes.  It’s just a March Madness Party.  Can I get you the TV later?  No.  It has to be now?  Sure.  Yes.  No problem.”

Of course, the TV was located on a cart inside the room currently occupied by the Sisters and God knows which guys from the party.  While upscale hotels can be pretty cool about a lot of things, they clearly would not be “cool” about the seriously unhinged scene that had rapidly developed in our general area. I had no choice.  I would have to calmly go into that room and retrieve the TV while the hotel clerk waited outside.  I sure as hell couldn’t knock before entering and try to explain.  I just needed to confidently walk in, and wheel that fucking TV out no matter what was happening in there.

I expected to see something I did not want to see when I walked in that room.  The heavyset fireplug Sister bobbing her head up and down on the lap of some guy I had met for the first time about two hours ago?  No problem.  It was when I passed the bathroom pushing the TV cart, glanced to my right to see the two other sisters on their knees sliding their mouths up and down the shaft of one of the groom’s high school pals as he gave me the thumb’s up that gave me some pause.  It was the same expression you would give someone at a cookout that said, “Hey!  Great burger!  Thanks man!”.  I pushed the TV out the rest of the way and closed the door. 

The rest of the night went according to plan.  The Sisters left after thanking me.  “Greg, anytime you need us just call.  This was a great night for us!”  Truly, they were pros.  I would consider them the ZZ Top of live sex shows.  They were veterans out there practicing their craft.  If they had a merchandise tent, I would have been tempted to buy a t-shirt.  Perhaps they could have listed the names of the Bachelors and the venues on the back of the shirt?  June 6 Bill Davis VFW Hall  Parma, June 13 Fred Gannet  Private Residence Berea, etc.  I’m just thinking of alternate revenue sources…

 I rounded everyone up after the wheels began to fall off and hotel security insisted we leave “soon”.  I wisely had rented a bus to drive us around, where we fell into the trap of going to the shithole strip bars.  Frankly, it was a bit of a letdown after the earlier scene at the hotel.  After the level of sleaze we had been immersed in, this was like a trip to Disneyland.  It was like a stop at Frontier Town.  It seemed quaint by comparison.  Our night had peaked too early, and we then decided to concentrate on binge drinking.  It was at this point that the first signs of trouble soon appeared.  “Hey man, I might have to tell Mary about this…  She might find out from her brother.” 

This was a Code Red.  The Groom was about to go Full Disclosure about his bachelor party.  This was an absolutely horrible idea, but clearly one that she had been priming him for on for weeks.  Most of us took turns offering the same sage advice they gave downed airmen in WWII.  Name, rank, and serial number.  Don’t reveal anything.  For the love of God, don’t talk about what happened here tonight.  None of it will be greeted with any sort of understanding.  “Oh, Greg booked three whores to come in and they offered to fuck all the men in my family and you?  That must have been a real hoot!  I hope the guys had fun!”  This was an event that got completely out of hand and there was no good spin to put on it.  Hell, he didn’t even do anything.  He should be scot-free on this thing.  All he needed to do was keep his cool.

The wedding came next week, and late the night before I was primed by the Groom.  “Hey man, I told Mary about last week.”  Um, what do you mean you told Mary?  You told her what exactly?  “Everything.”  Everything?  As in all of it?  Like everything?  “Yeah.  She was cool though.  It’s all good.”  This seemed very unlikely, but I headed to the church the next morning hoping that we’d all have a good chuckle.

I walked into the church in my rented tuxedo and black plastic shiny shoes.  Every single woman in a bridesmaid dress was glaring at me, fuming with an intensity that has been reserved for members of the Taliban, Nazi war criminals, and Sadaam Hussein.  Some of the mothers even glared.  A couple of them made a hissing sound as I walked by, I swear, a hissing sound!  This was not going to be a pleasant wedding.  They all spent time going from glowing looks of admiration at the bride to cold looks of hatred when they glanced at me through the ceremony.  When I took my partner’s hand to walk down the aisle after the vows had been completed, she hissed “Don’t fucking touch me you creep”.  This was bad.

We all walked outside and I stood alone, watching the rice tossed into the air and people struggling to take the perfect picture.  It was going to be a long reception.  A very long reception.  It was then an older man sidled up next to me.  I didn’t recognize him at first in the suit, but it was the bride’s very conservative and religious Uncle.  He had been at the party, and I remembered seeing him looking pretty uptight when things veered into the abyss.  Here he was though, walking slowly over near me.  He was clapping for the bride and groom, a proud happy Uncle.  He then leaned down to whisper as he continued to smile and clap. “That was the best bachelor party I ever went to...” And with that he slipped away, smiling and clapping some more.

I don’t know if the picture perfect young women of Napa are concerned about what their fellas are doing while they buy knick-knacks at winery gift shops, but take it from me, it’s better if they don’t ask.  Sometimes that shit just gets out of hand.