Bachelor Party - Part 1

"It seemed like a good idea at the time"

- men throughout the Ages

So the idea was to celebrate the oncoming loss of identity and fun in the life of a co-worker. To do such would require leaving town, gathering friends, and lots of alcohol consumption. Individually these things seem harmless; together it could be a nightmare.

Of course, such parties have been arranged throughout all Time and most have survived. There are two key differences between other BPs and those done "The CAT Way" (tm); 1) the others are 1 nighters; these are all weekenders (at least 3 days), 2) the others don’t require drinking a 40oz malt liquor on the van ride down. In fairness to the 1st, most of the 'extra' time is spent playing golf; to the 2nd - well, that Billy D Williams sure looks cool doesn't he?

There were a few specific problems I had for this trip as well. First, I was to be the driver and chaperone. That makes sense since I'm the only non-drinker. The real problem was making the smallest guy the chaperone of 16 drunk retards. Mind you a lot of guys go out and get drunk and still live. My concern was that these were mainly conservative, yuppie WASP DINKs free from normal constraints for an entire weekend; such joy they probably only vaguely remember from college years.

The good news was where we were going was close - Wilmington/Carolina Beach (about 2.5 hrs away). Up front bad news included not knowing who was staying in which room/place (we had orig scheduled 2 townhomes and 2 hotel rooms - at different places), not having specific directions/maps of Wilmington (though most were familiar with the area), not having any food in the van, and being warned by the folks at Enterprise up front that the contract didn't cover 'Bodily Fluids'.

The van itself was a problem. First the only way to get the one cooler in was to put it up between the captain’s chairs - lot's of elbow budging. Next, I had to hold the steering wheel at about 30degrees to go straight (Taggert drove his truck pulling a trailer full of baggage and golf clubs in front of us - he said he could see the frame out of alignment) - i.e., we were crabwalking the van. Another problem was apparently parts of the van were too easy to remove - filters, vents, fuse panels, handles, etc (why they kept doing that I don't know).

Tune in tomorrow for "Getting Started"